legaleagle,
Just so you know, I have decided not to pursue any action against anyone. At first I was terribly hurt to lose my pet, but can truely see no good coming of a lawsuit against anyone. It will not bring my pet back and it may cause some resentment from the police department and it really was just a bad set of circumstances that led to the whole incident.

I have a cousin in the sherrif's department and he has been a great help to get me through this. He stated that procedure was followed and gave me an insight into the mentallity of an officer when chasing a suspect and has helped me to see that it was just a tragic accident.

Having said all of that though, (there is always a but isn't there? ) am I mistaken in that this would fall under a Fourth Amendment violation? Or even quite possibly illegal trespass? My cousin and I are having our own legal debate about what happened and I am curious as to your opinion. It seems to me that as long as the police department had the area surrounded and little worry for the suspect to escape, that they should have been knocking on peoples doors and asking to search instead of just jumping over fences and searching. Am I mistaken on this? It would be nice to get one over on my cousin on this as he is too smart for his own good.

Thanks for the reply
Jon