Body camera footage released in shooting of dog in Missouri City
MISSOURI CITY, Texas (KTRK) -- An internal affairs investigation has concluded no wrongdoing on the part of a Missouri City Police officer who shot and killed a dog in its owner's back yard.
The police department said the officer followed policies and procedures.
The officer was responding to a noise complaint just after midnight July 15 at a home on Bedrock Lane. The Missouri City Police department released the body camera video from the officer:
According to the video, the officer let himself into the back yard through the side gate.
"Can you get your dog? Can you get your dog?" asked the officer.
You hear a dog bark twice and then a single gunshot.
The owners were frantic upon learning their two-and-a-half-year-old pit bull Chapo was shot dead.
"He came right at me. He came right at me. I didn't even have time to respond. I asked him: 'Can you get him? Can you get him?' He was...he was coming...he was coming, man," the officer could be heard telling a fellow officer.
"He stopped, he smelled at me first, and then he just, 'Grrrrr!' He came at me, and I (said), 'Can you get him? Can you get him?" And by that time just, 'POW!'" he said.
"It was very, very difficult," the dog's owner Liz Pedregon said of watching the video.
She called the officer's actions inexcusable and she has questions despite the ruling by the Missouri City Police Department.
"I just want to know why. I don't want to say I'm mad. I am upset," she said.
Pedregon insisted Chapo was never aggressive. She questioned what the officer really saw and asked why he didn't simply back out of the gate he'd just stepped through if he felt threatened.
She also wonders why the officer never knocked on the front door or identified himself in any way before letting himself in the backyard.
She wants to spark some type of change to keep this from happening again.
For his part, the officer does say on the video that he regrets what happened. He does not face any discipline. The department said it will implement additional police-canine encounter training.
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