Lawsuit says police didn't need to shoot, kill Rosie | Local News | The Seattle Times

Lawsuit says police didn't need to shoot, kill Rosie | Local News | The Seattle Times:

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Rosie's city pet license application also contained their contact information but was never checked, Karp said.

Dog "just sitting there"

According to witnesses quoted in the lawsuit, the dog was "just sitting there" when one of the officers used a Taser on her in the driveway of the Wrights' home, sending her running from the yard. The officers followed in their cars.

"He doesn't want to play," one officer is heard commenting. About a minute later, another officer says, "I'll shoot him. Let's just go shoot him," according to the lawsuit and dash-camera audio.

Meantime, another officer got close enough to Rosie to use a Taser on her a second time, firing through the car's open passenger window. The dog scampered away, eventually finding her way into Lora Perry's back yard, about four blocks away.

Perry, in an interview, said Rosie had apparently slipped into Perry's fenced yard while she was parking her car and had been there for about 15 minutes, "just sniffing around," when an officer arrived at the gate and asked if she'd seen a stray dog.

"I told him, 'Yes,' that she was here. He got on his radio and a few minutes later another officer arrived" carrying a rifle. Perry said the officers entered her yard, walking past a "No Trespassing" sign.

"One of them told me to get in the house, or something like that," Perry said. "It was clear they were there to shoot her. She wasn't doing anything. She was just sitting there."

Perry said she had two children in the house when the officer opened fire on the dog.

"They were frightened," she said. "And I was just livid. They didn't ask me anything. The dog could have stayed in my backyard."

The officers let her own dog out when they opened the gate to kill Rosie, Perry said.

After the first shot — which an autopsy later concluded shattered the dog's leg — one of the officers is heard shouting "Nice!" The officer with the rifle fired three more times, according to the lawsuit and dash-camera video.