What counts as an incident

We document incidents in which an on-duty government agent — a police officer, sheriff's deputy, animal-control officer, or other public employee — shot, killed, or seriously injured a dog in the United States. Off-duty incidents are included only when the agent invoked their official status or the incident led to official proceedings.

Sourcing standard

Every incident on this site meets the same bar:

  1. At least one verifiable published source, linked at the bottom of the entry. Our standard is professional news reporting or a court record. Nine of our current entries do not yet meet it — they come from the founding dataset and rest on secondary reporting (an animal-welfare blog that in several cases names the originating television station). Those nine carry a visible sourcing caveat at the bottom of the article, and no officer is named in any of them, because a name requires a source that meets the standard. We are working to replace those citations with the original reporting; if you can help, tell us.
  2. Every factual claim in the article traces to those sources. We do not add details the sources don't contain, and we do not speculate.
  3. Disputed facts are presented as disputed. When police say the dog charged and the owner says the dog was wagging its tail, we report both accounts and attribute each. Neither is presented as established fact unless a court or video evidence has established it.
  4. Officers are named only when the public record names them. If court filings or news reporting identify the officer, we do too — that is what a public record is. If not, the entry says "not publicly named," and we do not attempt to identify them. We never publish addresses, phone numbers, or family details, for anyone.

How new incidents are found

The site runs a daily automated search of news reporting and court records for new incidents. Every candidate is drafted into a review queue; nothing reaches the public site without a human opening it, checking the linked sources, and approving it. Before anything publishes, an automated check also enforces the rules above — it rejects drafts that carry no reachable source, that characterise an individual rather than reporting facts, that read as a call to action against a person, or that name an officer on sourcing weaker than our standard.

Accountability tracking

Each entry records the aftermath as reported: internal investigations, discipline, criminal charges, civil suits, settlements, and appellate rulings (including qualified-immunity decisions). We update entries when cases develop — an entry's "accountability" line reflects the most recent information in our sources. "None reported" means exactly that: our sources report no discipline or charges. It does not assert that none occurred; if you have a record showing otherwise, we want it.

Corrections

We correct errors quickly and visibly. See the corrections policy.

Copyright

Articles on this site are original writing based on the facts reported in the linked sources. We quote sources briefly, with attribution, and link to them prominently — read the originals; they are the record.