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Where Are They Now?: Russell Metcalf Edition

May 26, 2012
By .
Law, Politics & Current Events

In 2003, Patrol Sergeant Russell Metcalf of the Harrisonburg, Virginia Police Department struck Griffin Strother in the face during a traffic stop in which Metcalf was attempting to arrest Strother's friend.  Strother sued Metcalf alleging excessive force and violation of Strother's civil rights.

It was a routine case.  Sergeant Metcalf was given a summary judgment because he was just doing his job when he hit Strother in the face. After all, Strother moved in Metcalf's direction. Strother should have thanked Metcalf for the kindness of a punch in the face, rather than a gunshot to the chest.

Flash forward nine years, in which we learn what Sergeant Metcalf does when he's off duty.  He shoots 20 pound border collies for daring to cross his path.  The collie, named Sadie, was by all accounts a small and gentle beast.  Sergeant Metcalf, a fat and vicious son of a bitch, has been charged with cruelty to animals.

What's amazing is that Metcalf was charged at all. After all, he's a sworn officer of the law. If he'd shot Sadie while breaking into her owners' house, nothing would have come of it.

What's the point of bringing this up, and singling out Russell Metcalf, who after all only shot a dog rather than a human being?  Why do we write so often about police officers who kill dogs that pose no apparent threat to them?

It's because America is in love with its police officers.  In court, in the news, in entertainment, the policeman almost always gets the benefit of the doubt.  Bad movies and television shows joke about incarcerated suspects who "slip on the soap" in the shower, or on the floor, five times in 22 minutes. Police and prosecutors joke about "testilying". Defense attorneys don't.

Rule 404 of the Federal Rules of Evidence prohibits evidence of prior bad acts, or bad character, to prove that a witness is a bad person who likely behaved as a bad character at the time of the crime accused.  There are exceptions, like motive ("Russell Metcalf is one mean son of a bitch; he shoots border collies"), but the rule generally holds.  The rule need not, however, apply to public opinion, and courts take jurors as they find them.

We write about cops who shoot innocent dogs because everyone loves dogs.  It will be hard for Russell Metcalf, dog killer that he is, to testify with a straight face that Sadie the 20 pound border collie lunged at him and put him in fear of his safety.  The public, meaning jurors, should be aware how often policemen shoot border collies, and golden retrievers, and other harmless creatures. The public, meaning jurors, should take that awareness into the deliberation room when asked to decide whether Defendant W really assaulted Officer X, or Officer Y really beat the shit out of Plaintiff Z in violation of Z's civil rights.

Because judges, who know better than jurors that the policeman is made of mortal clay, all too often don't.

Last 5 posts by Patrick Non-White

13 Comments
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13 Comments

  1. Pharmamom  •  May 26, 2012 @5:09 pm

    We used to be naive suburbanites who believed the cops were the good guys. Now we tell our kids never to let a cop into the house, speak to a cop without an attorney, make eye contact with a cop or make any sort of movement in a cop's direction. Cops harass citizens because we are easy targets.

  2. John David Galt  •  May 26, 2012 @5:30 pm

    The moral I draw from this story is that dogs have greater civil rights than human beings. I wonder how we can go about getting ourselves legally declared dogs?

  3. perlhaqr  •  May 26, 2012 @5:58 pm

    Galt: I'm not sure that it's "greater civil liberties" as much as "greater public sympathy". It's easy for people to imagine that some random perp was actually a threat to Officer Brickbat. It's harder to imagine that a chihuahua was.

  4. Jack Marshall  •  May 27, 2012 @9:03 pm

    The police chief of Montgomery County, Md., a friend, tells me that whenever one of his officers has to make an arrest or a search in a home where there is any chance that a dog will be present, an animal control employee comes along. That seems like a good policy that should be made routine in all departments.

  5. John  •  May 28, 2012 @7:40 am

    I'm picturing cluster munitions and machine guns when the police have to raid a kennel.

  6. Chris Auld  •  May 28, 2012 @10:17 am

    I think this is the same gentleman:

    Pepper spray incident settled.

    (Roanoke County officer Russell Metcalf fired for pepper spraying a 77 year old woman in her own driveway for no good reason. Dated April 30, 1999.)

  7. Joe  •  May 28, 2012 @11:27 am

    Chris – good work finding that – it does indeed appear it is the same person as his firing (opps actually that was a resignation as part of the "settlement") is shortly before his employment in Harrisonburg. Sounds like his current employer didn't do their homework. He appearst to be one of those cops who use excessive force against grannies and dogs – probably because they're less likely to fight back. This guy clearly lacks the appropriate temperment to be a police officer.

  8. Grifter  •  May 29, 2012 @6:27 am

    I've seen police pepperspray a paraplegic before. It was pretty fricking terrible. I really wish the country would require a lot more deliberation prior to force, and/or shoulder cams.

  9. Mercury  •  May 29, 2012 @7:07 am

    Clearly the whole “Man’s Best Friend” thing isn’t paying the dividends it once did. Somehow we’ve reached the point where the EPA can ruin someone’s life for plucking a few blades of grass from protected “wetlands”, traveling with an old musical instrument of unknown natural provenance or removing small rock fossils from federal land…but dogs can be killed and abused with impunity.

    Can you imagine watching a TV show today in which a cop blows away a trespassing wild turkey, looses his cool with backyard deer or takes a shower with any damn water nozzle he chooses? No, of course you can’t. Face it, America loves (the idea of) something else more than even police officers.

    Sorry Snoopy but when the “environment” enjoys more rights and privileges than people do it’s time to disassociate yourself with the later and get reclassified as part of the former. Luckily, the American canine community probably just needs some fresh PR, some “awareness” raising and some regulation tweaking. I think it’s even possible that dogs can distance themselves far enough away from humans to gain protected species status yet still stay under the umbrella enough to inevitably realize Obamacare coverage.

  10. James C  •  May 29, 2012 @9:12 am

    I was recently summoned for jury duty, and during voir dire I was surprised to hear some of the candidates openly admit that they would trust a police officer's word more than that of the other witness. When, later, the defense attorney asked for dismissal of those jurors "with cause" the judge denied the motion and simply lectured the jurors, saying, basically, "Policemen are people, too."

  11. TFSporer  •  May 29, 2012 @7:55 pm

    Wife read me into your blog. Good find. I do police abuse cases and find this quite interesting. You guys oughta read about the rather interesting police practices in some of the Des Moines suburbs.

  12. marco73  •  May 30, 2012 @12:40 pm

    James C – I experienced the opposite effect.
    One time I was called to jury duty, the prosecutor saw that I had noted on my jury form that my father used to be a cop. He asked me if I thought that police testimony should carry more weight in court. I said no, that their testimony may appear to carry more weight, but that they were just people in uniforms with shiny buttons.
    Several jurors around me snickered, since one of the officers in the courtroom was a sheriff's Lieutenant dressed up like he was some extra in a community production of "H.M.S. Pinafore."

  13. Waldo  •  May 31, 2012 @3:53 pm

    By coincidence, I read this post just a couple of days after reading a story in the Fort Worth Star Telegram about an egregious example of a cop shooting a border collie-setter mix after he mistakenly entered the owners' property and shot the dog while standing on the owner's front porch.

    http://www.star-telegram.com/2012/05/28/3991473/owners-of-dog-killed-by-officer.html