Grunt was 12 years old, a rottweiler/lab mix, and on a night in January 2008 he was the first one to meet the Howard County SWAT team that came through the door of Kevin and Lisa Henderson's home in Columbia, Maryland.
The officers were carrying a warrant for a major drug-dealing operation, NBC4 Washington reported, but it described some other home down the street: a nearby house the police raided later that same evening more closely matched the warrant's description and contained marijuana, a pair of scales and large sums of money. What the raid on the Henderson house turned up, according to NBC4, was some pot and a bowl belonging to a house guest, who was arrested for possession. The Washington Post's account of the raid described the arrest of a house guest after officers found a small amount of pot in his coat pocket.
What happened to Grunt is drawn from the family's own account. The officers made a noise to attract the dog, then shot him "point blank," the Hendersons' lawsuit states, as quoted by NBC4. The Washington Post, summarizing the couple's account, reported that one officer distracted the dog while another shot him in the head. Grunt was still alive. The officers let him suffer for hours, the suit alleges, before allowing Kevin Henderson to take him to a veterinarian, where — at a cost of $550 — he was put to sleep.
The suit's account of the rest of the night is equally specific. An officer identified in the complaint only as "Officer Pete" handcuffed the Hendersons' sons, Brian and James. When James kept asking why the police had shot his dog, the suit says, the officer took the safety off his submachine gun, pointed it at James's head and threatened to "blow your [expletive] head off" if he kept talking. The same officer allegedly took Kevin Henderson to the floor and, after Henderson said he was disabled by diabetes and neuropathy in his legs, "twisted his boot" on Henderson's calf, tearing the skin. He handled Lisa Henderson roughly, the complaint says, until a colleague told him, "Pete that's enough." The police account of that night is not reported in either source.
Four days later, when the Hendersons went to file a formal complaint about the raid, police arrested them for possession. They were acquitted.
In July 2009, Kevin and Lisa Henderson filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against Howard County and three of its police officers seeking $5 million. Neither source reports how that suit was resolved, and a complaint is an allegation, not a finding — no court ruling, verdict or settlement in the case appears in either account. Neither outlet reports that any officer was disciplined, charged or publicly named for shooting Grunt; the complaint itself identifies the officer at the center of its allegations only by a first name. What the public record shows is a warrant for another address, a 12-year-old dog dead, a possession arrest for the couple who tried to complain, and an acquittal.
Six years later, The Washington Post placed Grunt on a list of dogs killed by police enforcing marijuana prohibition — a list the paper noted "is by no means comprehensive," because no one is required to keep one.