Dist. Ct. erred in granting defendants-police officer and Village’s motion for summary judgment in plaintiffs’ section 1983 action, alleging that defendants violated their Fourth Amendment rights when officer, who responded to report that plaintiffs’ daughter had been victim of possible criminal conduct, shot plaintiffs’ family dog six seconds after officer appeared at plaintiffs’ front door. While Dist. Ct. relied on video contained in officer video-camera to find that officer was justified in shooting dog, Ct. of Appeals also looked at video and found that video did not support officer’s version of incident, since: (1) video did not reveal whether dog was growing or barking as officer claimed; and (2) video also did not reveal what dog was doing during six-second interval up to time video showed that dog had been shot. As such, because other evidence contained conflicting versions of incident, summary judgment could not be used to resolve said factual discrepancies in favor of officer.
Federal 7th Circuit Court
Civil Court
Fourth Amendment