$50,000 Payout Over Dog Shot By Cops Approved

EVANSTON, IL — The Evanston City Council approved a financial payout to end a lawsuit over the shooting death of a dog in 2015, as aldermen approved the settlement by a vote of 7-1 Monday. Evanston will pay $50,000 to put an end to litigation stemming from the April 26, 2015 incident when police were called to a home in the 2000 block of Darrow Avenue for a report of a verbal altercation and fatally shot a dog there.

According to the lawsuit, when police arrived, one of the participants in the argument had already left. But police did not leave when the person who called them asked them to. Instead, they conducted a warrantless search, which was within their legal rights because they had been called to the house, a judge found.

When an officer entered the basement and was surprised by a two-year-old German Shepard dog, he shot five times and killed the family's pet. The officer alleged that the dog, which was leashed to a pole, lunged at him as he entered the room. (Get Patch real-time email alerts for the latest news for Evanston — or your community. And iPhone users: Check out Patch's new app.)

The family said they heard a loud yelp and some banging from the basement, but were not allowed to go down to the basement to assist their dog, named Chance. They were crying and visibly upset, and as a result of Chance's death, they suffered, "anguish, nightmares, anxiety, fear, physical symptoms like headaches and stomach [aches], inability to sleep, pain suffering [and] embarrassment," according to the suit.

In the lawsuit, which claimed that officers intentionally inflicted emotional distress, cops waited more than an hour before informing them that an officer had fatally shot Chance.

Earlier this year, a federal judge agreed with the City of Evanston and dismissed some of the family's claims against police but allowed claims of 4th Amendment violations and unlawful imprisonment to proceed, leading to Monday's vote to approve a settlement in the case.

No disciplinary action was taken by the Evanston Police Department against any of its officers as a result of the incident, according to the City's response to a Patch public records request.

Read Judge Virginia M. Kendall's Jan. 31 order upholding some counts of the suit and dismissing others:

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