police officer shoots dog Archives

Off-Duty LAPD Cop Shoots Pet Dog near Downtown Film Set (Updated)

This story was updated May 28, 2017.

As an episode of the Hulu series “Chance” was being filmed on a downtown Los Angeles street the morning of May 26, something horribly dramatic happened off camera. An off-duty LAPD motorcycle officer, who was working as a security guard on the film set, shot and killed a pet dog.

The unidentified cop was working on South Main Street when he got into an argument with Emry Zumreet and was attacked by his “aggressive” Pit Bull — or at least that’s the story from LAPD spokeswoman Jenny Hauser, according to the Los Angeles Times.

LAPD Sgt. Barry Montgomery concurs with Hauser. “A dog belonging to that suspect became aggressive and attacked our officer, and it was at that time that an officer-involved shooting occurred,” he told CBS Los Angeles. The officer was taken to a hospital for minor injuries.

But Zumreet’s attorney and an apparent eyewitness to the shooting tell quite a different story.

“I live in the building above where this happened, the officer was completely fine,” wrote camjameson in a comment on the L.A. Times story.

“At least 100 people from the surrounding buildings were yelling about the incident, having seen it themselves, and everyone claims the officer was not attacked, but that the dog was just growling,” according to camjameson. “This is some cover up if I’ve ever seen it. Your gun should never be your first option in a threatening situation, there are so many other options, especially against a mid-sized dog and a super scrawny dude in a wife-beater with no visible weapons. Shameful.”

According to Ben Meiselas, Zumreet’s attorney, this is what happened:

As Zumreet drove down South Main Street, the LAPD officer stopped traffic due to the TV shoot. Zumreet got into some kind of argument with the officer, and the officer opened the car door. When Zumreet stepped out of his car, the officer pulled out a handgun. Zumreet’s dog jumped out of the car through the open door, and the officer shot him.

“He executed the dog because it was a Pit Bull,” Meiselas told the Los Angeles Times. He said witnesses have come forward to say the shooting was unnecessary.

Another witness, Nelson Aguilar, told KCAL9 he heard two men yelling and then two gunshots. He recorded the rest of what he saw on his cell phone.

“And I saw the dog, and the dog had been shot, and it was squirming on the floor,” he said. “And I saw the owner, and the owner was yelling, talking about, ‘You killed my dog.'”

Aguilar said the Zumreet was arrested after he kept going into the roped-off area, “hugging his dog.” Meiselas told the Times Zumreet called the LAPD for help before he was arrested. According to KCAL9, police haven’t decided whether any charges will be pressed against him.

Hopefully security cameras in the area recorded what really happened. Stay tuned for more details as they become available.

Coincidentally, the series “Chance” that was filming near the shooting is about a forensic neuropsychiatrist (Hugh Laurie) who’s pulled into “a violent and dangerous world of mistaken identity, police corruption and mental illness,” according to Hulu.

Preventing ‘Puppycide’

To prevent this, some police departments are training their officers how to deal with scared or agitated pets in non-lethal ways.

In response to the shocking, viral 2013 video of a Hawthorne, Calif., police officer shooting a Rottweiler named Max as his owner begged him not to, spcaLA began offering the class, “Dog Behavior for Law Enforcement” to all police departments in California.

In 2013, Colorado became the first state to pass a “Dog Protection Act,” which requires similar training for law enforcement officers. Two years later, Texas enacted a law that required the Texas Commission on Law Enforcement to establish a statewide comprehensive training program in dog encounters.

These programs are a good start, but as those sad statistics make clear, teaching law enforcement officers how to humanely deal with dogs should be required in every state.

Photo via YouTube

LAPD Cop Shooting Dog at Busy Venice Beach Also Shoots Woman

On a summery day like yesterday in Los Angeles, crowds of tourists flock to popular Venice Beach. Despite putting these visitors at risk, an LAPD officer opened fire in the middle of the afternoon on a Pit Bull who he said bit his hand. The bullet passed through the dog and hit the leg of a woman who was riding by on a bicycle.

The woman was taken to UCLA Medical Center, where she was in stable condition yesterday. The dog did not survive.

The unidentified officer who somehow thought it was a good idea to use his gun on a crowded boardwalk has been assigned to non-field duties as this case is being investigated. He will “have to be able to articulate why they used the force they did, and why they did not use other options if they were applicable at the time,” Detective Meghan Aguilar told KTLA.

There’s currently no video available of the shooting incident. It happened after two mounted LAPD officers told a group of people who were blocking part of the bike path to move their belongings. A couple of people in the group became belligerent, and the dog became agitated. When the officers got off their horses, the dog allegedly bit an officer’s hand.

“I heard a struggle, and the next thing I knew, I heard a shot. And I saw the dog laying there,” Tara Borris, a witness, told KCBS. “I think the dog was just protecting his owner. I didn’t hear any growling.”

Terah Clark, a woman in the group, told KCBS the dog’s owner was holding the dog back by his collar when the officer fired.

This case was described by KCBS as “very unusual” because an innocent bystander was also shot — but these cases are not unusual at all. In June 2015 a 4-year-old girl was shot by a cop who was aiming for her family’s dog. Three months before that, a woman in Iowa was killed by an officer’s bullet intended for her dog.

The KCBS report shows the owner sobbing as he holds his dead dog, who Clark said he’d had for 10 years. One person in the group was arrested for an outstanding warrant and another for resisting arrest, but the dog’s owner wasn’t one of them.

Preventing ‘Puppycide’

It’s a horrible statistic, but more than 10,000 pet dogs are shot by police officers in this country every year, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. There’s even a term for it: “puppycide.” To prevent this, some police departments are training their officers in non-lethal ways to deal with scared pets.

These programs are a good start, but as those sad statistics make clear, teaching law enforcement officers how to humanely deal with dogs should be required in every state.

Fortunately, many police officers inherently know the right way to handle frightened animals. Just last week, two deputies in Florida saw two scared, stray Pit Bulls in the middle of a street. While that LAPD officer would likely have shot both of them, Deputy Boggs and Deputy Reed with the Orange County Sheriff’s Office stayed with the dogs, comforting them until animal services arrived. Good cops, indeed.

Photo via YouTube

Off-Duty Cop at Dog Park Shoots Deaf Woman’s ‘Aggressive’ Service Dog

At first LaToya Plummer of Greenbelt, Md., couldn’t figure out why her service dog, a Pit Bull mix named Cleo, was limping and bleeding as they left a dog park Sunday.

Because she is deaf, Plummer could not hear the gunshot that sent a bullet into Cleo’s side. It was fired by an unidentified off-duty Metropolitan Police Department officer who claims Cleo, with her teeth bared, aggressively charged her and her small dog.

Plummer finds this difficult to believe. “She is the most calm and gentle of my dogs,” she told WUSA 9 through an interpreter.

The officer immediately reported that she’d shot a dog, but by the time Greenbelt Police officers arrived, Plummer — thinking Cleo had been bitten by another dog — had rushed her injured dog to a vet.

It’s unfortunate that no one witnessed the shooting. Even if Cleo did run toward the officer, it seems both dangerous and unnecessary to fire a weapon at such a public place.

“I think she should be charged with felony animal cruelty,” Plummer told WUSA 9.

Plummer said Cleo was walking behind her when the shooting occurred. She didn’t say why she wasn’t keeping an eye on her or why Cleo was off-leash outside the dog park.

The Greenbelt Police Department is investigating the case and has not yet filed any charges.

As for Cleo, WUSA 9 reports she is a very lucky dog and is making a “remarkable” recovery.

“I love Cleo,” Plummer told WUSA 9. “I cherish my dogs.”

Photo via Twitter

Outrage Grows after Florida Cop Shoots Rescued Dog 3 Times

As he drove around a Florida City neighborhood Tuesday, police officer Marcus Terry noticed that a car door had been left open in the driveway of a house.

He knocked on the front door to alert the residents. When Sage Raphael opened the door, her family’s rescued 2-year-old Pit Bull mix, Duchess, bolted out.

“She was excited. Someone’s at the door,” Gillian Palacios, Raphael’s mom, told CBS Miami. “She’s excited to see who it is, you know, normal dog behavior.”

As Raphael watched in horror, Terry quickly pulled out his gun and shot Duchess three times in the head.

“I was about to grab her. I had her and two seconds later, it’s three gunshots,” Raphael told CBS Miami.

“Your dog charged me,” Terry told her and her mom, who ran out when she heard the gunshots, Local 10 News reports. He said Animal Services would pick up Duchess, and then walked away, leaving the dog lying in a pool of blood.

A surveillance camera captured the horrible incident on video. Duchess doesn’t appear to be showing any signs of aggression in the second or two before Terry killed her.

“She was curious. She wasn’t barking (and) she wasn’t growling,” Palacios, who fosters homeless dogs, told Local 10 News. “There was no reason for him to think she was aggressive in any way. There were a million things he could have done other than shoot her three times in the head.”

Officer Ken Armenteros, a spokesman for the Florida City Police Department, told Local 10 News that facts about the shooting are currently being gathered.

“We don’t have the luxury of hindsight,” he said. “We have to use the information that is given to us in a split second. So, the officer has to make that decision with the information that he has available.”

Terry has been placed on administrative leave during the investigation.

“He needs to take responsibility for his actions,” Raphael told CBS Miami. “If he didn’t want to be in this position, he should have never pulled that gun and made that first move.”

An online petition asking that Terry be fired has more than 22,400 signatures as of Thursday morning.

Sadly, some police officers tend to be gun happy when dealing with pet dogs who are just doing what comes naturally — protecting their families and property.

Across the country, far too many dogs have been shot and killed by police officers who have had no training in how to deal with them. According to Ozymandias Media, which produced the new documentary “Of Dogs and Men” on the topic, a dog is shot by law enforcement every 98 minutes.

In 2013, Colorado became the first state to pass a “Dog Protection Act,” which requires all law enforcement officers to undergo training in dealing with dogs. In May, Texas enacted a law that requires a statewide comprehensive training program in dog encounters to be created by Jan. 1, 2016.

This is a start, but as Duchess and these sad statistics make clear, teaching law enforcement officers how to humanely deal with dogs should be required in every state. Officers who choose to treat dogs inhumanely should be charged with animal cruelty.

Here’s the surveillance video showing Duchess being killed by Terry. Please be warned it is very graphic and disturbing.

My heart goes out to Palacios and Raphael. Rest in peace, Duchess.

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Photo via Facebook

Ohio Police Officer Aiming for Pet Dog Shoots Little Girl Instead

When a woman flagged down a police officer on a street in Whitehall, Ohio, yesterday afternoon, telling him her sister, Andrea Ellis, had cut herself, the last thing she probably expected was that her 4-year-old niece, Ava, would end up being shot by the cop.

That’s what happened when, as the unidentified police officer stood in the front doorway of the Ellis family’s house, their pet dog ran toward him.

The officer drew his gun and fired a shot at the dog. Instead, the bullet possibly ricocheted and struck Ava’s leg.

After the shooting, the officer “seemed a little disoriented, like he was really bothered,” neighbor Norman Jones, who called the police after he heard the shot, told the Columbus Dispatch.

Neighbors said the Ellis family has two dogs, who both wear electronic shock collars that prevent them from leaving the house. Police spokeswoman Denise Alex-Bouzounis told the Dispatch the dogs were put in the backyard after the incident.

According to the Columbus Division of Police Facebook page, Ava was taken to Nationwide Children’s Hospital in stable condition. Her mother was treated for her cut at another hospital.

Iowa Woman Killed in January by Cop Shooting at Her Dog

This is at least the second time this year that a police officer has accidentally shot a person instead of a dog.

In January, 34-year-old Autumn Steele of Burlington, Iowa, was fatally shot by officer Jesse Hill, who had been aiming for Sammy, her German Shepherd. Hill was outside Steele’s home, responding to a domestic dispute, when Sammy began growling.

Hill told Steele to get her dog. When Sammy bit him, Hill fired two rounds, striking Steele in the chest and right arm. After an investigation, Hill was cleared of criminal charges and returned to work in March, according to the Des Moines Register.

Training Cops to Humanely Deal with Pet Dogs

Sadly, police officers tend to be gun happy when dealing with pet dogs who are just doing what comes naturally — protecting their families and property.

In fact, Ozymandias Media, which is producing the documentary “Puppycide” on the topic, reports that a dog is shot by law enforcement every 98 minutes.

“When an officer shoots a pet dog, it is traumatic for the officer, the animal and the community — something we want to mitigate as much as is possible,” Madeline Bernstein, president of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Los Angeles (spcaLA), said in a press release earlier this year.

In 2013, Colorado became the first state to pass a “Dog Protection Act,” which requires similar training for law enforcement officers. Last month, Texas enacted a law (HB 593) that requires the Texas Commission on Law Enforcement to establish a statewide comprehensive training program in dog encounters by Jan. 1, 2016.

This is a start, but as these sad statistics make clear, teaching law enforcement officers how to humanely deal with dogs should be required in every state.

Photo via Facebook