A federal court judge this week rejected City of Evanston efforts to have all claims dismissed against police officers who shot and killed a dog after responding to a domestic violence call last year.
The incident happened on April 26, 2015, when officers responded to Trinette Lark’s 911 call asking them to help break up a verbal altercation at her home at 2043 Darrow Ave. between her fiance, Clarence Cavines, and her adult daughter.
By the time officers arrived, Cavines had left, and Lark and other family members asked the police to leave. Instead, the complaint said, the police questionned the family members about the whereabouts of Cavines, and some officers went down back stairs to the basement, unaware that a two-year-old German Shepard dog named Chance was leashed to a pole there.
When one officer opened the door to the basement with his gun drawn, he says the dog lunged at him, and he fired five shots, killing the dog.
The family members allege in their suit that more than an hour elapsed before a police supervisor informed them that Chance had been shot and had died.
Judge Virginia M. Kendall of the U.S. District Court in Chicago on Tuesday dismissed claims of intentional infliction of emotional distress and trespass against the officers.
But she ruled that other claims, including for unlawful search and seizure and false imprisonment, could go forward.
Related story
Family decries shooting of dog (Evanston Review, 4/30/15)