FAYETTEVILLE — A federal jury found in favor of a former Fayetteville police officer Tuesday in a lawsuit over his use of a drugsniffing police dog during a 2003 traffic stop.
The jury in U.S. District Court in Fayetteville found for Jeremy Grammer, who was sued in 2006 by Justin Slaughter, a former University of Arkansas football player.
In the suit, Slaughter claimed Grammer illegally searched and detained him on Nov. 26, 2003. He said Grammer coached the police dog to "alert" or indicate the presence of drugs inside a teammate's car he was driving and that he was humiliated by the stop along busy Garland Avenue.
Slaughter, 24, of Fayetteville sought damages.
At the two-day trial, Grammer and officers Jason French and Travis Lee said they found "shake,"or remnants of marijuana, on the floorboard of the car, but that it wasn't enough to arrest anyone.
Jarrod Russell, an attorney for Grammer, told jurors Grammer treated Slaughter with "dignity and respect," and that it was Slaughter's own fault for being behind the wheel of a car with drug remnants inside.
"This was a successful drugdog sniff - 'shake' was found," Russell told jurors Tuesday before they deliberated. "If Mr. Slaughteris embarrassed, it's his own fault. The only way anyone knew about this case is because he went down and filed a civil-rights lawsuit in federal court."
Slaughter also sued French and Lee, but Judge Jimm L. Hendren dismissed them, granting them immunity.
Hendren let the jury decide claims that Grammer coached the dog to "alert," or knew the dog's behavior didn't indicate the presence of drugs.
On Monday, jurors watched a police video of the search showing Grammer leading his dog, Cero, around the car. The video showed Grammer sweeping his arm toward various parts of the car's exterior. Cero jumped up, placing his front paws on those areas.
Grammer testified Cero was scratching the outside of the car, which indicated the smell of drugs and gave him and the other officers probable cause to search.
Slaughter's attorney, Doug Norwood of Rogers, said he didn't see Cero scratching on the video and that testing couldn't be done for the lawsuit because the dog has since died.
"That dog was an 'aggressivescratcher' dog," Norwood told jurors Tuesday. "If he would have smelled drugs, you would have seen him scratching like crazy."
Police stopped Slaughter because he swerved, he said, to avoid an object in the road.
Arkansas, Pages 20 on 10/31/2007