Couple had to euthanize 1-year-old dog shot twice by Colorado officer, lawsuit says
A Colorado police department is being sued after one of its officer shot a couple’s 14-month-old dog that later had to be euthanized.
Attorney Sarah Schielke said in a news release Wednesday that Wendy Love and her husband Jay Hamm filed a civil lawsuit in Larimer County District Court, saying their civil rights were violated after officer Matthew Grashorn shot their dog named Herkimer in 2019.
Grashorn and two other officers, Sgt. Philip Metzler and Chief Robert Ticer, are named in the suit, along with the city of Loveland.
McClatchy News didn’t immediately receive a response to a request for comment from the Loveland Police Department.
According to the complaint, Grashorn shot the Staffordshire terrier and boxer mix on June 29, 2019 when he was responding to a trespassing call at a commercial building in Loveland.
The couple decided to stop in an empty parking lot with their three dogs to repair an ice box they used to deliver firewood, according to the lawsuit. Andrew Hendrickson, the owner of a building next to the parling lot, watched the couple on surveillance video and called Loveland police, telling them that someone had “tampered with the dumpster lock” once before and he didn’t want the couple “to mess with it,”, the suit states.
Grashorn arrived first and approached the couple without warning, according to the lawsuit.
“It was an ambush, and Grashorn knew it. He didn’t care,” the suit says. “He suspected that they were poor and wanted to surprise them, to see if they were up to anything he might be able to get an arrest for.”
One of the dogs, Bubba, took notice of Grashorn and started to approach the officer, who pointed his gun at the dog, the lawsuit says. The couple called Bubba back, causing Herkimer to get excited and approach Grashorn, the lawsuit states.
Grashorn fired twice, hitting Herkimer in the face and body, according to the suit. Herkimer fell to the ground and Love started to cry, asking Grashorn if she could take him to the vet but he said there was “nothing to be done.”
Herkimer was in intensive care for four days and was later euthanized, the suit states.
The lawsuit described Herkimer as a “sweet, loving, playful dog” with “no history of biting or otherwise being dangerous to humans.”
The complaint also alleges that Loveland police told veterinarians that Herikimer attacked Grashorn and the dog was “dangerous and had attacked police and needed to be euthanized.” The vets then told the couple that the dog needed to be put down because he would be taken by animal control regardless of the outcome of the surgery to be euthanized.
Loveland Police Chief Ticer and two other officers reviewed video footage and said that Grashorn’s actions were “reasonable” and there were “no policy violations,” CBS Denver reported.
The couple requested a jury trial and is seeking compensatory, economic and punitive damages. They also want an formal written apology from each defendant and a police department policy change to prevent similar incidents in the future.
This story was originally published August 26, 2021 at 11:45 AM with the headline "Couple had to euthanize 1-year-old dog shot twice by Colorado officer, lawsuit says."