The dog's owners, Martin Serna and Sonia Gonzalez, claim their civil rights were violated because of "unlawful seizure" and destruction of their dog, a 2-year-old bull terrier named Mac.
The incident happened one morning in the summer of 2014, when police responded to a report of a vicious dog loose in the 1000 block of Larry Drive, according to Sun-News archives. The 30-pound dog had reportedly attempted to attack a 79-year-old neighbor.
Dispatchers sent officers to the scene, and an officer "attempted to exit his patrol unit when the dog approached aggressively, pinning the officer against his unit," according to an LCPD news release from the time. That's when the officer fired, striking the dog. An animal control officer took the dog to a local veterinarian, where it was pronounced dead, according to authorities.
There was disagreement between the couple, authorities and some neighbors about whether the dog acted viciously.
Serna told the Sun-News soon after the incident that his dog wasn't aggressive and that the 79-year-old man had in past months provoked the animal.
Serna and Gonzalez filed the suit against LCPD and the officer who shot the dog, Ricardo Porras, in August 2015, contending that Porras arrived on scene, and "Mac the Dog slowly approached the Defendant Porras in a submissive position," according to court records.
"Upon seeing Mac the Dog's slow approach towards him, Defendant Porras pulled out his service weapon and maliciously and intentionally shot and killed Mac without cause," Serna and Gonzalez's complaint states. "Defendant Porras had the option and ability to use less than lethal force, and failed to do so."
The complaint — filed by the couple's attorney, Christopher Cardenas of Las Cruces — states that when Serna and Gonzalez arrived at the scene, several LCPD officers already were there who were acting "jovial, one officer even going so far as to state to Plaintiffs that their dog was dead, and then began to laugh."
A video filmed by the couple in the minutes following the incident shows them confronting several officers with outrage at the shooting of Mac.
The city, in a formal response filed in September 2015, denied this accusation, as well as most others leveled by the couple's court complaint.
LCPD spokesman Dan Trujillo declined to comment on the case because it is pending litigation.
One neighbor told the Sun-News in July 2014 that prior to the shooting, the 79-year-old man was fending off Mac with a plastic chair. And when the man got inside his home, Mac was jumping at the window. The dog was lying in the man's garden, then left to chase another woman who was walking nearby, the neighbor said.
Mac had previously been impounded, in February 2014, by animal control for running loose in the neighborhood, according to an LCPD report.
At that time, the 79-year-old had called police to report a "vicious loose dog" and told responding officers the dog had attempted to attack him. The man had said he was "fed up with this problem" and had called animal control previously to no avail.
Cardenas, in an interview with the Sun-News this week, said the response by police may have been an overreaction, exacerbating what happened.
"One of the things we're looking to achieve is to make sure the Las Cruces Police Department responds correctly for the situation at hand," he said. "Had animal control officers been allowed to respond first, they'd have been able to take better care of the situation."
"This was a bull terrier, a small- to medium-sized dog," he said. "If an officer is afraid of it, he might want to reconsider his profession."
Continued Cardenas: "We just want to see justice done for Mac."
In addition to unlawful seizure, Serna and Gonzalez allege LCPD allowed for negligent training and supervision of officers and violated property rights. They're seeking compensatory damages for loss of "property, humiliation, embarrassment, emotional and mental distress and anguish," and punitive damages, according to the complaint. Also, they're asking for "reasonable attorney fees" and the lawsuit costs. The couple is seeking a jury trial.
(Las Cruces Sun-News - Jan 29, 2016)
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