Sylvan Plowright called 911 on the evening of October 5, 2020, to report someone trespassing on a vacant property near his home in North Miami-Dade County. Two Miami-Dade Police Department officers, Leordanis Rondon and Sergio Cordova, were dispatched. According to Plowright's complaint, as recounted in the Eleventh Circuit's opinion, they came up his "dimly lit driveway," and when he stepped outside to meet them they drew their guns and "immediately began shouting" at him to show his hands.
Then his dog walked into it. Niles was an American Bulldog who, the complaint says, weighed less than 40 pounds. The officers ordered Plowright to get control of him. In body-worn camera footage later released by the department and described by Miami New Times, an officer can be heard shouting "get the dog or I'm gonna shoot it" while Plowright repeatedly calls the dog's name and Niles barks at the officers with his tail wagging.
Before Plowright could take hold of him, Rondon fired a taser into the dog, sending him "into shock," the complaint alleges. Then, "after the dog was already down from the taser," Cordova "fired at least two shots from his gun, killing the dog for no reason." The officers ordered Plowright to the ground as Niles lay dying; in his complaint, he said he feared they "would shoot him for no reason too."
The department's account was different. Miami-Dade cleared Cordova after an internal affairs investigation. Miami New Times, citing WSVN, reported that investigators described Niles as a "vicious dog" and concluded the officer "discharged his firearm to protect himself from serious physical injury." Plowright, who says he was "extremely attached" to the dog, told WSVN: "I didn't have no kids. This is my family."
Plowright sued Miami-Dade County, Chief Alfredo Ramirez, Rondon and Cordova in federal court in January 2022, seeking more than $75,000. To support his claims against the county, he attached a news article identifying five family pets, Niles among them, that Miami-Dade officers had shot since 2018, and reporting that the department had no "standard dog training program." A district judge threw the whole case out, holding that Cordova had qualified immunity because Plowright could cite no Supreme Court or Eleventh Circuit ruling that shooting a dog is a constitutional violation.
The accountability record
On June 5, 2024, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit reversed in part. Writing for the panel, Judge Jill Pryor held, as a matter of first impression in that circuit, that shooting a domestic animal is a seizure of the owner's property, and that "an officer may not use deadly force against a domestic animal unless that officer reasonably believes that the animal poses an imminent threat to himself or others." Cordova's conduct as alleged, the court wrote, was "so bad that case law is not needed to establish that the conduct cannot be lawful."
That ruling denies Cordova qualified immunity at the pleading stage and lets the Fourth Amendment and emotional-distress claims against him proceed; it is not a finding of liability, and the panel noted that bodycam footage or other evidence could yet change the analysis. The dismissals of the claims against the county, the chief, and Rondon were affirmed. No settlement or judgment has been reported. No discipline was reported: the department ruled the shooting justified nearly four years before a federal appeals court said the conduct alleged was obviously unconstitutional.