The bird who cried wolf?

While I never like to read news reports about police kicking in the doors of people's houses, at least this one was different:

TRENTON, N.J. - Cries for help inside a Trenton, N.J., home turned out to be for the birds. Neighbors called police Wednesday morning after hearing a woman's persistent cry of "Help me! Help me!" coming from a house. Officers arrived and when no one answered the door, they kicked it in to make a rescue.

But instead of a damsel in distress, officers found a caged cockatoo with a convincing call.

Hey, at least they didn't use a SWAT team.

This is the sort of story which could be spun into an interesting question on a law school exam. Suppose the occupants had been home when the police entered, that the bird stopped yelling, but the owners were having a loud and animated time in bed -- with which the bird had been vocally interacting (as psittacines are wont to do). The clueless officers then go upstairs to "help" the woman in distress, and are greeted by her husband -- just interrupted from sex -- who, thinking there's a burglary in progress, grabs a gun. Who gets shot? Who's fault is it? Who is chargeable with what? Suppose it turns out that the neighbor knew they had a noisy bird that often shrieked "HELP ME!", that she wanted the police to do something about the noise, and figured that reporting the cries without adding the details about the bird would get a more effective police response. Would she be liable too? Or would she be immunized from suit because this was a report to a government agency? (Remember, she did not lie; she just didn't tell them the whole story...) What about the dispatcher, who did not ask the neighbor whether she was certain the cries were coming from a human being?

Add a SWAT team, and it could get even more interesting....

posted by Eric on 09.07.08 at 10:26 AM





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