Police in Atwater, Minn., had warned a family that they weren't allowed to keep chickens. Then in August, Police Chief Trevor Berger took things into his own hands -- stopping by their home and beheading one of the hens with a shovel.
"I came home to find the chicken's head lying in front of its coop," Ashley Turnbull said Tuesday.
Turnbull said the small red hen was like a puppy to her 5-year-old son, Phoenix. The boy got several hens and ducks as a birthday present, she said, and he likes to load them into a red wagon, bringing them to the sand box and the park. "They're his babies," she said.
Turnbull said she knows she's in violation of the city's ordinance; an officer had stopped by earlier in August to warn her. But she doesn't believe that Berger handled the situation appropriately. She recently filed a formal complaint with the city, which is in central Minnesota.
Berger told the West Central Tribune, which first reported this story, that the killing was justified:
