I am just bummed out about my dog getting shot and am looking into legal action. I am just curious about what options I have right now. The details are thus:

Saturday morning approx. 8:30 am, a local neighborhood market was robbed at knife point and the suspect was followed to my block before he was lost. The police set up a perimeter around the entire block and figured the suspect to be trapped.

4 police officers started searching in back yards for the suspect. They entered my neighbor's yard through the gate and determined that the suspect was not in her yard. Looking over the fence they saw that my garage door was open and proceded to climb over the fence to gain entry.

1 officer was already physically present within the fenced area of my yard as a second was still climbing the fence. My dog came out of the garage where he sleeps, chased the officer that was on the fence first, then turned to the officer in the yard. As the dog approached he yelled, "Get back" and then shot the dog in the head. I rushed him to the vet, but he died a couple hours later.

Please keep in mind that myself, my girlfriend, and our 2 year old son were all in the house and awake when we heard the yelling, the dog bark, and the shot. At no time prior to this did anyone knock on the door to announce that they had a fugitive loose in the neighborhood, nor did they attempt to yell out a warning as they were coming over the fence. They knew that the suspect was in the neighborhood (and they did catch him in a tool shed a few houses down from mine), but they were not in "hot pursuit" chasing him down.

Now, since this happened in California, I believe that a pet is considered personal property and this would constitute a fourth amendment violation. Am I correct in this assumption?

Any advice is appreciated.

Jon