Lady Gaga with some of her pets
(Picture: Instagram/Lady Gaga)A gunman accused of shooting and seriously wounding Lady Gaga’s dog walker before stealing her two French bulldogs has mistakenly been released from jail.
James Howard Jackson, 19, was being held on an attempted murder charge but was released from a jail in Los Angeles “due to a clerical error”, a sheriff’s department said.
The authorities have launched a search operation in a bid to track him down.
Jackson is one of five people arrested in connection with the attack which took place in Hollywood in February, 2021.
Prosecutors said Jackson and two other alleged gang members had driven around looking for expensive French bulldogs to steal.
They then spotted, tailed and robbed Ryan Fischer as he walked Lady Gaga’s dogs near Sunset Boulevard.
During a violent struggle, Fischer was hit, choked and then shot in an attack captured by the doorbell camera of a nearby home.
The camera recorded the dog walker screaming “Oh, my God! I’ve been shot!”, and “Help me!” and “I’m bleeding out from my chest!”
Fischer lost part of a lung following the harrowing incident.
“While I’m deeply concerned at the events that led to his release, I’m confident law enforcement will rectify the error,” Fischer said in a statement obtained by KABC-TV. “I ask for Mr. Jackson to turn himself over to the authorities, so resolution to the crime committed against me runs its course, whatever the courts determine that outcome to be.”
The pop star’s dogs were returned two days later by a woman who claimed she had found them tied to a pole and asked about Lady Gaga’s offer of a $500,000 reward.
The singer was in Rome at the time filming a movie.
The woman has been charged with receiving stolen property and the father of another suspect is charged with helping him avoid arrest.
Jackson pleaded not guilty when he was charged on Tuesday with attempted murder, conspiracy to commit a robbery and assault with a semiautomatic firearm.
The move was done “to speed up the legal process” and Jackson was arraigned Wednesday under a new case number, the DA’s office said in a statement.
“Mr. Jackson was subsequently released from custody by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. We are unsure as to why they did so,” the statement said.
