Friday, August 19, 2011

Jury awards family $300,000 after police kill man’s dog during search

Thomas Russell III describes watching a police officer shoot his canine “best friend” two years ago as “the scariest thing I ever saw.”

On Thursday, a U.S. District Court jury decided Russell, 20, and his family deserved to be compensated for the Feb. 27, 2009, police search of the family’s South Side home during which “Lady,” the family’s black Labrador, was shot dead. The jury awarded the family about $300,000.

Read more in the Chicago Sun-Times...

(Note: this story doesn't say whether any of the damages were for the actual value of the dog herself, as opposed to the NIED claim for the person. Nonetheless, even an NIED recovery where the underlying harm was injury to an animal is (I believe) the first time that's happened in an Illinois case. Congrats to the plaintiff's attorney(s), and if anyone knows who they are, please let me know!)


1 comment:

Aer said...

This is such a disturbing incident. There should have been a much more effective way to detain Lady if she really was a threat to the officers. More than likely she was understandably distraught because her owners were being held (with guns to their heads) by the officers in question.