The city of Loveland, Colorado, will pay $675,000 to end a lawsuit against a police officer for shooting a family’s dog—a record settlement for the police killing of a pet in the state, the family’s attorney says.
Wendy Love and Jay Hamm filed a civil rights lawsuit in 2021 accusing Loveland police officer Mat Grashorn of recklessly killing their 14-month-old dog, a Staffordshire terrier and boxer mix named Herkimer, in a 2019 incident. The lawsuit alleged that Grashorn’s shooting of Herkimer was an unreasonable seizure under the Fourth Amendment and violated their constitutional rights.
Now Loveland has agreed to pay Love and Hamm, as well as create new recurring training requirements for officers on how to deal with dogs.
“For seven years, this family has been told by LPD’s chain of command that what Grashorn did was reasonable, was within policy, and required no changes,” Sarah Schielke, the attorney representing Love and Hamm, said in a press release announcing the settlement. “But today, the size of this long-awaited settlement and its terms prove otherwise.”
Schielke said the settlement is the most paid by a police department for a dog shooting case in Colorado history, and it ranks among the largest in the country. Over the past several decades, there have been a disturbing number of cases of police officers needlessly shooting family dogs, leading to huge lawsuit settlements. Last year, a small Missouri town agreed to pay $500,000 after a deputy shot a blind and deaf shih tzu dog.
On June 29, 2019, Grashorn was responding to a call from a business owner about a suspicious truck parked on the owner’s commercial property when he encountered Love, Hamm, and their three dogs. The couple was making firewood deliveries that day, and according to the lawsuit, stopped in the parking lot to give the dogs some water.
Body camera footage released along with the lawsuit shows Grashorn stepping out of his police cruiser. Love and Hamm’s other dog, Bubba, is sleeping on the ground but gets up and begins running toward the officer. Grashorn draws his gun on the dog, but the couple yells at the animal to come back. It pauses and turns toward its owners, but Herkimer jumps out of the truck and lopes toward Grashorn with its tail wagging. Grashorn shoots the dog.
After the shooting, Grashorn refused to allow the distraught couple near Herkimer, ordering them to go back to their truck. When Hamm demanded to know why Grashorn had shot the dog, Grashorn yelled that he had “no way of knowing” whether Herkimer was friendly and that he “wasn’t in the business to get bit.”
The lawsuit alleged that Loveland police refused to let the couple retrieve their dog and take it to a veterinarian until a Loveland police supervisor arrived on the scene. Hamm was ticketed for having a “dangerous dog.” The ticket was later dismissed by the district attorney.
Herkimer died four days after being shot. An internal review by the Loveland Police Department found the shooting was justified.
Grashorn attempted to argue that he was immune from Love and Hamm’s suit under the doctrine of qualified immunity, which shields government officials from civil liability when the constitutional right they’re accused of violating isn’t clearly established under current law.
However, a federal judge ruled that a jury could reasonably find that Grashorn wasn’t in imminent danger when he shot the dog, and in 2025 the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit upheld that ruling on appeal.
As a result, the lawsuit not only created new training requirements for Loveland police officers but also created legal precedent in Colorado and five other states covered by the 10th Circuit that it’s clearly established that police may not shoot a dog in the absence of imminent danger.
The City of Loveland did not immediately respond to a request for comment. However, in a statement to CBS News Colorado, the town’s public relations team said Loveland and the Loveland Police Department “remain committed to the continuous evaluation of policies, training, and practices intended to support public safety, transparency, and community trust.”
“The settlement totals $675,000 and includes updates to the Loveland Police Department’s dog encounter policy and training practices,” the statement continued. “The agreement resolves the matter instead of going to court, with the individuals agreeing not to pursue further legal action against the City and related entities.”
Love said in a press release that she and Hamm are “hopeful that the amount of money the City’s finally had to pay sends a powerful message.”
“Protecting other dogs has always been [our] primary goal,” Love said. “Herkimer’s senseless death ripped a hole in our hearts and lives that no other family should ever have to endure. Hopefully we did enough. There will never be true justice for Herkimer so long as Grashorn remains employed as a police officer. But at least Herkimer’s legacy will be the significant changes his case brought about in federal law and to LPD training and policy.”
