A north Minneapolis woman whose dog was shot 10 times and whose
house was ransacked by Minneapolis police officers has sued the department,
alleging that the incident earlier this year was set off after a failed police
pursuit of her fugitive brother.
One officer was hit in the leg by a stray bullet as a trio of
officers shot the dog on the night of March 30, and in the confusion that
followed, a large group of officers arriving at the scene thought someone in
the house had shot the officer, according to the suit.
The suit charges that enraged officers then ransacked the house,
breaking windows and doors, damaging furniture, ripping a large-screen TV from
the wall and dumping a fish tank onto the floor, killing the children's pet
fish and hermit crabs.
Leah Anderson's suit, filed May 24 in U.S. District Court,
alleges violations of her constitutional and civil rights and asks for
compensatory and punitive damages of at least $300,000.
The Police Department's internal affairs unit has opened an
investigation of the incident, a police spokesman said Friday. No department
leaders were immediately available for comment.
In her suit, Anderson says that on the evening of March 30, she
had several out-of-town guests staying at her home in the 1600 block of 22nd
Avenue N. because her mother's funeral had just taken place.
About 9:30 p.m., her brother, a convicted sex offender named
Roosevelt Montgomery, came to the house uninvited. He had fled his halfway home
and, unknown to Anderson, was fleeing police officers, the suit says. He was
told to leave and ran out the back door, the suit says.
Moments later, three police officers who were in pursuit of
Montgomery arrived. Later that night, police said the three were working with
Department of Corrections officers on the pursuit.
As Anderson's husband met the officers in the front yard, the
family's 8-month-old pit bull appeared. Anderson's husband said he would
collect the dog and called for it, but the officers called out "Pit
bull!" and began shooting, striking the dog in the head, legs and body and
fatally injuring it, the suit said. A bullet or bullet fragment struck one of
the officers in the leg, and another dog also was shot and wounded.
The officers radioed that one of them had been shot, and soon
approximately 30 officers arrived at the house, according to the suit. Anderson
and her family and guests were handcuffed or placed on the ground before they
were led away, the suit said.
Anderson said she discovered the damage to her home when she
returned several hours later. She said she then met with Minneapolis police
Sgt. Jerry Wallerich to complain. According to the lawsuit, he told her that
the police action was done out of revenge due to the police officers' mistaken
assumption that someone in the house had fired at them and advised her to sue
the department to recover her losses.
The following afternoon, on March 31, several officers who did
not have a search warrant returned to Anderson's home, the suit says. They threatened
the home's occupants, used a racial epithet and told one person that it was
lucky it wasn't dark outside or they would put that individual in the hospital,
according to the suit.
Anderson then called Wallerich, who told her to hand her phone
to one of the officers. Anderson claims in her suit that she could overhear
Wallerich telling the officers that they didn't have a warrant and should leave
the home immediately.
The Minneapolis Police Department's Policy & Procedure
Manual states that any damage that occurs to an occupant's home during a search
must be reported to a supervisor and photographed. The officers' alleged
language would be a violation of the department's professional code of conduct.
The manual also states that while serving a search warrant, officers must
return a house to some semblance of order, with drawers placed back in
dressers, and so on.