{"id":62793,"date":"2026-01-13T11:53:39","date_gmt":"2026-01-13T16:53:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/?p=62793"},"modified":"2026-01-14T12:13:03","modified_gmt":"2026-01-14T17:13:03","slug":"ca8-ricocheting-bullet-not-a-seizure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/?p=62793","title":{"rendered":"CA8: Ricocheting bullet not a seizure"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Unintended shooting target: \u201cWhen an officer fires at a dog, is there a seizure of the dog\u2019s owner when the stray bullet hits her instead? We conclude the answer is no.\u201d Hight v. Williams<\/a>, \u00a02026 U.S. App. LEXIS 781<\/a> (8th Cir. Jan. 13, 2026):<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

The undisputed facts in this case all point to the absence of a seizure. \u2026 Perhaps the most important one is that, as Hight concedes, \u201cDeputy Williams fired his county[-]issued service weapon at [the] Pomeranian.\u201d His words matched his actions, given that each of his statements was about getting the dogs under control, including ordering them to \u201cget back!\u201d And finally, the bodycam video shows that he fired downward toward the dog as it approached, which supports the conclusion that it was his target, not Hight. Hitting her was an unfortunate accident. See Brower v. County of Inyo, 489 U.S. 593, 596 (1989) (explaining that the Fourth Amendment does not address \u201cthe accidental effects of \u2026 government conduct\u201d). To be sure, we have stopped just short of fully embracing an objective test in unintended-target cases.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Unintended shooting target: \u201cWhen an officer fires at a dog, is there a seizure of the dog\u2019s owner when the stray bullet hits her instead? We conclude the answer is no.\u201d Hight v. Williams, \u00a02026 U.S. App. LEXIS 781 (8th … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52,69],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-62793","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-excessive-force","category-seizure"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62793","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=62793"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62793\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":62801,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62793\/revisions\/62801"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=62793"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=62793"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=62793"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}