Man Sues Police Officers After Being Forced To Decapitate His Dog's Body

A Georgia man who claimed last year that a police deputy shot his dog and then ordered him to decapitate it has now sued the officials over the ordeal.

The chain of events began in December 2017 when deputies showed up at the man's house to investigate a complaint which claimed that his pet had bitten a neighbor. The man, identified as Joe Nathan Goodwin, said he first heard of his dog being shot when his girlfriend Natasha Dakon called him at work.

Reports stated that as soon as Goodwin found out about the incident, he rushed to his house only to find his Pit Bull cross dead. At the time, the cop who claimed to have shot the dog justified his actions stating that the animal attacked him and he acted purely out of self-defense. Goodwin later said the cops also asked him to decapitate his two-year-old dog named Big Boy so that they could send it for rabies testing.

According to the lawsuit filed by Goodwin, he complied with the orders and cut Big Boy’s head off after James Hollis, Crawford County Sheriff's Office investigator threatened to throw him in jail, Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported.

“Under extreme emotional duress and distress, and under threat of incarceration and physical harm, Plaintiff Goodwin was forced to decapitate the dog with a knife,” the lawsuit said.

Both Goodwin and his girlfriend have sued the sheriff officials for $75,000. Both say they were extremely traumatized by the incident.

Reports stated that officers told Goodwin to take his dog to the vet when he inquired about the options he had apart from chopping the dog’s head off. However, the officials did not allow him to leave the property.

The incident had created quite a stir in December as videos of the confrontation were shared by Goodwin on his Facebook page. In a Facebook Live video, Goodwin can be heard saying, “I will cut the head off and get it to you,” after which he asked the two deputies to get off his property.

The video also had Hollis reprimanding Goodwin for his tone. "You're not fittin' to talk to me or my deputy like that," he could be heard saying.

Reports stated that the Crawford County Sheriff’s Office had gotten hundreds of phone calls from across the country to investigate the incident in depth. A petition, which demanded that the sheriff fire Hollis, got close to 200,000 signatures online.

At the time, Crawford County’s Sheriff Lewis Walker had said that the investigative officers should not have asked Goodwin to cut the head off his dead dog. Walker had also reprimanded the deputies and added they had no business investigating whether the dog was rabid as the case belonged to the county's health department.