The two Detroit cops were insistent the suspect they were looking for was hiding inside Teresa Thomas’ home despite her assertions they were wrong.
When she tried to close the front door to her house, refusing them entry without a warrant, one of the cops yanked the security door open and pulled her outside, allowing her two dogs to escape.
The other cop then shot the two dogs, Tiny and Winter, as the first cop laughed. They then proceeded to search her home without a warrant.
When Thomas made a public records request to obtain information about her case, including the identity of the two cops, the Detroit Police Department tried to charge her $2,000.
Last week, Thomas filed a federal lawsuit against the cops and the Detroit Police Department, the latest in a string of lawsuits from people whose dogs were killed by police which has resulted in at least $385,000 in settlements since 2015, according to Reason Magazine.
The incident took place on July 19, 2019 – four days before another incident we reported on in which Detroit police were caught on camera shooting and killing a man’s dog.
The two Detroit cops, identified as “City of Detroit Police Officer John Doe #1” and “City of Detroit Police Officer John Doe #2, are accused of violating her Fourth Amendment rights to be free from unreasonable search and seizures, according to the lawsuit, which you can read here.
One of the dogs survived the shooting, the other did not.
In 2017, Detroit police shot 54 dogs, twice as many as Chicago police did during that same period, according to Reason Magazine.
