Feature | Taylorsville 911!: A messy tale of cops, robbers ... and a little dog, too 

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THE HEAT IS ON
“Our target is an 11-year-old black-and-white Boston terrier that goes by the name of Oscar,” reads the operation plan for the search and seizure warrant. It was signed by 3rd District Court Juvenile Judge Andrew Valdez on May 25, 2006. Conder and Eyring question why a juvenile judge would sign a search warrant for a dog. Court officials, however, point out that rather than this being a case of judge-shopping, in all likelihood, Valdez­­­—who did not respond to a call for comment—was the assigned judge for that week. Five detectives were assigned to the search, including Davies and Sgt. Rivera. Two other detectives assisted them. Rivera signed off on Davies’ plan. She then sent it up “the chain of command to Chief Larry Marx,” Davies wrote in a report.

They left Taylorsville police headquarters at 1:30 p.m., apparently without informing Salt Lake City Police they would be conducting an operation in its territory. This, Morgan points out, is at the very least a break in “common police practice.”

The operational plan reads like a briefing for taking down a dangerous suspect, rather than a flatulent pooch. “Once we off load we will approach the target from the west on foot,” the plan continues. “Containment will break off and work their way around to the rear of the house.”

Debbie Evans was in the driveway, on the phone to her husband, when she realized she was surrounded by Taylorsville’s finest.

“I was pretty angry that it had come to this,” Jim Evans says. “I was on the computer, trying to get a flight home, calling attorney friends to try and figure out what to do.”

Police interrogated Alexandria, who broke down in tears. “I hope you feel good about yourself traumatizing a 12-year-old,” Jim Evans’ sister, Carol Phillips, told the police when she picked up her niece.

Police spied a boy leaving the Evanses house with a large cardboard box. This box generated intense interest. One detective, Marnie Montgomery, noted in her report, the box was “placed on the front passenger seat and the window rolled down slightly. Myself and Lt. Spann began to follow the vehicle, however due to traffic we could not get any closer that [sic] 5 cars from the target car.” A male took the box into a clothing store.

Montgomery and Spann went into the store and asked to look inside the box. “Carol Phillips began to argue with Lt. Spann stating that this was ridiculous and that we were scaring the kids.” Montgomery looked in the box. Rather than finding a tail-wagging—if long-in-the-tooth—hound, all she saw was clothing.

“We knew it was a civil matter, so we were protecting ourselves by moving the dog around,” Jim Evans says. His wife did not know Oscar’s whereabouts, he adds. After she was jailed, he arranged for the terrier to be handed over. At Salt Lake County Animal Control, the dog’s chip was scanned. The chip showed Oscar had been adopted by Debbie Evans in August 1999.

PISSING CONTEST
Once the dog was safely back in Dirker’s arms, so the legal process wound down. Charges against young Justin Evans were dismissed, despite Conder’s protestations. He wanted to show the judge just how ridiculous the situation was. Taylorsville prosecutor Miller also dismissed the charges against Jim Evans.

With the legal system apparently off their backs, all the Evanses wanted was their dog. “Our children were so excited to get Oscar back,” Debbie Evans says. “Now, that’s all taken away by some police officers.” They also wanted to punish Taylorsville Police. “We thought what they had done was fundamentally wrong,” Jim Evans says. “I don’t think anybody should have to be bullied by any police.” Conder filed his federal lawsuit in August 2006 with these two aims in mind.

If Jim and Debbie Evans thought that was the end of their legal nightmare, Taylorsville had other ideas. In February of this year Evans received solicitations from local lawyers offering to represent him on some charges. He threw the mailings away. When he received more, he checked with the court. At first he found no charges listed against him. Then he discovered his name had been misspelled on court documents. Not only had Miller filed charges against him, a warrant was out for his arrest.

Not that the new case required much effort on Miller’s part. He took the 2006 charging document, which still listed his wife, Lohra Miller, who was then co-prosecutor, changed a couple of dates and handed it in. Lorenzo Miller did not respond to an interview request.

Taylorsville City is represented by Salt Lake City firm Parsons Kinghorn Harris. A public records request to Taylorsville Police was referred to a lawyer with the firm, John Brems. In addition, he is also handling the civil case for Taylorsville, along with his associate Lisa Petersen. The only report Brems deemed suitable to release to City Weekly was Dirker’s complaint that Oscar had been stolen. Neither Brems nor Petersen returned calls seeking comment.

“Why now?” Conder demands to know about Miller’s change of heart. Where Taylorsville City has benefited is that the civil case is now delayed until the criminal matter can be resolved. He suspects Miller, at the behest of Taylorsville’s civil attorneys, of using his prosecutorial powers to punish Evans for exercising his rights to sue. This infuriates Conder. “My client has a right to sue Taylorsville City for violating his constitutional rights,” he says.

FOR THE LOVE OF OSCAR?
Like all shaggy dog stories, this one has a punch line—but not the one the Evanses wanted: Oscar died.

Boston terriers, breeder Carol Enright says, usually die at around 13 years. That might have been an easier end for Oscar. It turns out the day after Dirker got Oscar back, she scheduled him to be neutered at Brookside Animal Hospital as well as having a growth removed from his left ventral thorax. Enright says castrating a dog of Oscar’s advanced age poses “a definite health risk.” On June 11, Oscar was snipped. The vet’s report noted Oscar’s “declining condition since.” The dog came back into the hospital three days after the operation and was put on IV fluids. “He cries out in pain,” the report says. He had bloody diarrhea and vomited several times. Just before midnight on June 14, 2006, Oscar died.

“It almost makes me cry to look at the vet’s report,” Debbie Evans says. “When we turned him over to the police, he was playful.”

The Evanses now have two Boston terriers, Lilly and Shushu. Jim Evans’ pretrial hearing on the new charges is scheduled for June 29. The Evanses had always had a good relationship with law enforcement until this happened. Jim Evans called the police when students from a nearby high school roamed the streets during class hours. Now, every time Debbie Evans sees a Taylorsville Police Car her stomach lurches.

Jim Evans wants answers to questions he knows he’ll probably never get. Like why Detective Davies was so determined to get Oscar back, that, in Jim Evans’ opinion, “he shoved his badge around.” For Evans, Davies wasn’t just doing business, it was personal. His law enforcement expert Nick Morgan, in his report, agrees. “It appears obvious that, because of his relationship with the complainants, he abused his police authority to retrieve the dog for them,” he writes, resulting in Jim and Debbie Evans being “subjected to police misconduct and abuse of their constitutional rights.”

Given Oscar’s advanced age, plaintiffs’ attorney Conder says there was no crime because the dog was worth nothing financially, not to mention it was also the Evanses’ dog. Oscar’s value rested in the love of those who claimed him as their pet.

Despite his client’s embattled legal status, Conder is upbeat on the prospects for their civil lawsuit, even if it means biting the hand-in-blue that feeds him. “I think the only way to force a police department to really follow the law and police ethics is to teach them to respect what a citizen is due and sanction them appropriately when they don’t,” he says.