Costa Mesa Pays Family Over Killing of Pit Bull by 2 Officers

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-dogshot28sep28,1,1371731.story?ctrack=1&cset=true

Costa Mesa Pays Family Over Killing of Pit Bull by 2 Officers
In the $225,000 case, the officers pursued boys to cite them for riding their bikes without helmets.

By Garrett Therolf
Times Staff Writer

September 28, 2006

Costa Mesa has agreed to pay a family $225,000 to settle a lawsuit that alleged two police officers were wrong when they shot Paul, the family's brindle pit bull, 15 times and killed him.

The dog was killed May 13, 2004, as police chased two boys through the family's backyard. Police said the boys, who were friends of the family, had run away from officers who were issuing them citations for riding their bikes without helmets.

"The death of Paul changed my family's life," said Mary-Jo Mansfield, mother of the family who owned the dog. "I don't think the police ever felt remorse, and we never heard they were sorry."

Harold Potter, the assistant city attorney who negotiated the settlement, said Paul was poised to attack and that police were in the right when they killed him.

"There has absolutely been no determination of police misconduct," he said, but other factors led to the city's payout. "For one thing, juries like dogs more than people."

The family's attorney, Jerry Steering, said witnesses of the bike riders' flight from police had pointed officers to the Mansfield home as their hiding place. When police knocked on the door, Mansfield's son, Cody Holst, then 17, answered. When he declined to immediately allow the officers to search his home, Steering said, two other officers jumped over the backyard fence and were confronted by Paul.

Steering said Paul sniffed Officer Eric Wisener's crotch. Another officer, Jeff Graham, told the Daily Pilot newspaper in 2004 that the dog bit Wisener. The two officers responded by shooting the dog.

Steering said in a news release that before the shooting, police pointed their guns at Cody Holst's 16-year-old brother, Billy, and would not let him put Paul and the family's other pit bull in the house. The release also said that after shooting Paul, officers tackled Cody, pushed Billy to the ground and handcuffed him, and then taunted the brothers.

The family had acquired the dog from a shelter after he was found as a puppy in a trash can suffering from rickets.

Mansfield and her sons filed suit in federal court, saying the officers wrongfully denied them the use of their property: Paul.

During the legal proceeding, which was settled with the help of a mediator, Potter acknowledged that tapes of the radio transmissions made during the incident were improperly destroyed. He said in an interview that the erasure was unintentional and occurred when the tapes were reused to record radio transmissions months later.

Wisener's uniform was also not available during the legal proceeding. Steering had requested that it be produced to determine whether the officer had been bitten. Potter said the uniform had already "outlived its useful life and was thrown out."

Steering said Mansfield and her two boys "are going to use the money to move out of town."

 

That makes me sick to my stomach. Police officers are supposed to be the ones that look out for us citizens and better the community; Not people that abuse their power and commit something so horrible as killing a family pet, and even if it did bite the officer (which for some reason I highly doubt), there would be no need to shoot it 15 times.

That is completely ridiculous. It makes me want to vomit. And I would have filed the biggest lawsuit that I possibly could, and tried my hardest to have those officers removed from the force.

-c10

 

The dog was simpl y trying to protect its property and its people. Makes me sick. I don't understand people and what they do.

 

"For one thing, juries like dogs more than people."


I can SOOOOO relate!!!

 

Even if the dog did bite the officer (wich clearly didnt happen or they wouldnt have lost the lawsuit) thats the fault of the officer for one jumping into some ones back yard uninvited and not letting the boy put the dogs away in the first place.

 

costa mesa police, and thier neighbors in newport beach are complete assholes. i hate them.