Hennesy, a boxer mix, was inside an apartment in Landover Hills, Maryland, on June 2, 2021, when Prince George's County police officers decided they needed to get through the locked front door.

The officers — Cpl. Jason Ball and two others the department has not publicly named — were responding to a report of a dog bite. They did not have a warrant. They did not get one. Instead, they obtained a master key from a maintenance worker at the complex, let themselves into the apartment, and opened fire on the dog inside.

Erica Erazo, one of the residents, said she held Hennesy as the dog died in her arms.

The mechanics of the entry are worth stating plainly, because they are the heart of what followed. A locked apartment door is precisely the boundary a warrant exists to cross lawfully. These officers crossed it with a borrowed maintenance key. Whatever they believed was waiting on the other side, no judge had authorized them to open that door — and what was waiting was the residents' dog, at home.

The lawsuit

In November 2023, nearly two and a half years after the shooting, four residents filed a $16 million lawsuit over Hennesy's death.

By then, the department's internal reckoning had run its course, and the public record of it is brief. One of the three officers was disciplined and returned to full duty. What that discipline consisted of was not reported. The other two officers remained on paid administrative duty — drawing salaries, at public expense, while the case worked its way forward.

No criminal charges were filed against anyone who entered the apartment that day.

That is the full accounting as it stands: a warrantless entry with a borrowed key, a dog shot dead inside the home, a resident left holding the dying dog. One officer disciplined in some unreported way. Two on paid administrative duty. Zero charges. And a $16 million claim that, if it costs the county anything at all, will be paid not by the officers who opened the door but with public money.

The residents went to court because it was the only venue left. Inside the department, the matter was already closed.