Massa, J,
On a summer afternoon, police responded to a report of dogs fighting in Carpenter’s backyard. Officer Matthew Wilson of the Fort Wayne Police Department was the first to arrive on the scene. Neighbors told him that Carpenter was not home and gave him Carpenter’s cell phone number. From outside the fenced yard, Officer Wilson observed three bloody pit bulls running to and from an area underneath a deck where a wounded fourth dog had retreated. Officer Tina Blackburn arrived next, followed by Sergeant Derrick Westfield. They also saw the dogs running in and out of the home through an open sliding glass door.
When Fort Wayne Animal Care and Control Officer Bryan Miller arrived, he decided to enter the yard to corral the dogs despite Sergeant Westfield’s reservations. As the gate was locked, Miller jumped over the three-foot fence to remove the dogs from the yard and secure them in his vehicle. Miller caught three of the dogs, including the most severely injured one hiding under the deck, but the fourth dog went into the house and would not come out. At that point, Miller asked Sergeant Westfield to enter the house with him to retrieve the fourth dog and ensure no one was injured.
The officers knocked on the front door, but no one answered. Sergeant Westfield then announced their presence at the open sliding door in the back and asked if anyone was inside, but no one responded. They entered the home, and once inside, Miller and Sergeant Westfield noticed two doors with ventilation ducts protruding out of them and a strong light emanating from behind them. Sergeant Westfield opened the door to one of the rooms and found marijuana plants inside. Miller eventually located the fourth dog in an upstairs bedroom and removed it. They did not find any other dogs or people in the home. Based on the officers’ observations, members of the Vice and Narcotics Unit obtained and executed a search warrant for Carpenter’s home, seizing the marijuana and other controlled substances. During the search, neighbors advised the officers that Carpenter worked at the gas station just down the street. Carpenter returned home, and the officers arrested him.
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Nevertheless, although the police unquestionably have an interest in protecting the public from risk of harm from a violent dog, this interest does not confer blanket authority to enter private homes under all circumstances. Unlike Holder and VanWinkle, in which the officers knew there were people in dangerous situations, the officers in this case had no such knowledge. In fact, the objective evidence suggested there was no one home; no one answered the door or responded to the officers’ announcements, and a neighbor told the officers the homeowner was at work. Any threat of danger to the outside public was slight; the dog was confined in a fenced yard secured by a locked gate, and the officers could have further prevented the dog’s escape by closing the sliding door. The dogs’ aggressive behavior and bloodied appearance simply were not enough to give rise to a reasonable belief that a person was in danger of imminent harm or in need of immediate assistance. Moreover, the officers did not need to enter to address the situation. They had Carpenter’s phone number, and calling him or his employer to ensure that no one was in the residence would not have been overly burdensome. See Trotter v. State, 933 N.E.2d 572, 581 (Ind. Ct. App. 2010) (finding law enforcement needs to be low, especially where “the officers made no effort to contact [the defendant] by any means other than direct intrusion into the dwelling”).
Taken together, these factors lead us to conclude the officers’ entry into Carpenter’s home was unreasonable and therefore impermissible under Section 11. Because the warrant was based on the officers’ observations made during their illegal presence inside Carpenter’s home, the admission of evidence recovered pursuant to that warrant was an abuse of discretion. And the State offered no other evidence against Carpenter. Accordingly, we must reverse his convictions.
Our opinion today does not mean that an animal’s condition or behavior could never give rise to reasonable grounds upon which a police officer could enter a residence without a warrant. All we hold is that on these facts, the trial court erred in concluding entry was reasonable without any objective evidence that a person required immediate assistance. Because we have resolved this issue under our Indiana Constitution, we need not consider Carpenter’s claim that the admission of the evidence found in his home violated his rights under the Fourth Amendment to the Federal Constitution.
Rush, C.J., and Dickson, Rucker, and David, JJ., concur.