LOVELAND, Colo. — A Loveland police officer accused of shooting a couple’s dog in the head back in 2019 will face a civil trial in connection with the case, the U.S. Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Tuesday.
The trial stems from a lawsuit the dog’s owners filed in 2021, claiming the shooting by Loveland Officer Mathew Grashorn forced them to euthanize their dog four days later.
Court documents from Tuesday’s ruling state Officer Grashorn was responding to a call from a business owner who reported that a truck was parked outside his business after hours.
Body camera footage, which is graphic and may be disturbing to some, shows two dogs running toward Officer Grashorn as soon as he stepped out of his patrol car. One of the dogs stops after he is called back by its owners, but a 14-month-old Staffordshire Terrier-Boxer mix continues toward him, and Grashorn shoots the dog.
Five months after the shooting occurred, the Loveland Police Department's chain of command reviewed the video and found the shooting “violated no policy” and was “reasonable,” according to attorney Sarah Schielke of The Life & Liberty Law Office, the firm representing the couple.
Police declined to comment on the allegations, but Schielke said Grashorn violated policy and training.
"Colorado has the Dog Protection Act," Schielke said. "It requires — it's supposed to at least — a heightened additional amount of training for officers so they're not gunning dogs down the second they see one.
The 2021 lawsuit, which argued the couple’s Fourth Amendment rights against unreasonable searches and seizures were violated, said Grashorn could've taken several alternatives instead of shooting at the dog, including: Taking two steps backwards and getting in his vehicle, taking two steps backwards and using the door of his vehicle as a buffer or shield, using a Taser, using a baton, using pepper spray or shooting next to the dog to scare him, "rather than directly into his skull to end his life."
But in an appeal, Grashorn said he had qualified immunity as the shooting was reasonable because the dog posed an immediate danger.
- Denver7 reported the details of the shooting revealed in the lawsuit filed by the couple in 2021. You can view that story in the video player below:
“The district court concluded that a jury could reasonably find that [the plaintiffs] had not posed an immediate danger to Officer Grashorn because … [the plaintiffs] may have been able to gain control of the dog [and] a reasonable officer in Officer Grashorn’s position could have used non-lethal means to avoid any danger,” the appeals court wrote in its ruling Tuesday.
The court also argued the officer had “time to respond differently to the situation.”
In its ruling, the appeals court also said they lacked jurisdiction to consider the officer’s version of the facts as his arguments “contradict the district court’s universe of the facts.”
The lawsuit filed by the couple alleged at Loveland officers lied to Larimer County Animal Control to cover their actions by calling the dog "dangerous" and saying that the dog had "attacked police and needed to be euthanized.”
“Under that universe of facts, Officer Grashorn didn’t face an immediate danger and had time to consider non-lethal options,” the ruling by the court of appeals reads.
It further noted that the district court was right to rule that the couple’s Fourth Amendment rights were violated despite the officer arguing the court had not binding precedents on such an issue.
“…The district court concluded that a jury could reasonably find no immediate danger to Officer Grashorn, rendering a constitutional violation clearly established."
A trial date in the case has not been set.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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