“He was just the sweetest dog ever and his life ended in a horrible way,” the dog’s owner Abbey Harnish says.
A blind and deaf dog was shot and killed by a police officer who said he believed the pet at rabies.
Bodycam footage shows officer Myron Woodson walking to the white Shih Tzu named Teddy after responding to a call about an injured dog.
Video shows Woodson trying to get a lasso around the dog’s neck, but the officer seemed to have a hard time to get the device to work. He was not aware that Teddy was blind and deaf.
After three minutes, the officer cocked his gun and shot the dog. He opened fire a second time, killing Teddy.Teddy’s owner confronted the officer.
“That’s not how you handle a situation. If a dog is a threat to a person and harms a person or shows immediate threat, that’s when you use force,” the owner said.
Abbey Harnish, Teddy's owner, spoke with Inside Edition.
“He was just the sweetest dog ever and his life ended in a horrible way,” Harnish says.
City officials in Sturgeon, Missouri, issued a statement saying, “The officer acted within his authority based on the information available to him at the time to protect against possible injury to citizens from what appeared to be an injured, sick and abandoned dog.”
The officer has said he thought the dog may have had rabies.
The body camera video has caused an uproar and the resignation of the mayor.
Woodson was placed on leave pending the investigation.
