Newly released surveillance footage shows the shocking moment a Chicago off-duty officer shot and killed a neighbor’s dog that had escaped and was allegedly attacking her own pet.
Footage released by the Civilian Office of Police Accountability (COPA) reveals the moment a Chicago Police Department officer discharged her firearm at a pet dog while she was walking her own pet corgi in the Bridgeport neighborhood on 21 April.
"You shot my dog! Why?” the dog’s owners can be heard shouting at the officer in the released footage.
The officer, identified in COPA’s case incident report as Carmen Mostek, was walking her corgi on a leash at around 11.30am on a Sunday morning and encountered another dog that had escaped its owner’s home, COPA said in a press release.
In a tactical response report Ms Mostek describes the escaped dog as a pit bull, which apparently escaped from its backyard.
Ms Mostek claimed in a 911 call that the escaped dog was trying to attack her own dog.
The escaped dog began to “engage” the off-duty officer’s pet on the street and the owner of the escaped dog came out and attempted to try and separate the two animals, the COPA release states.
The surveillance footage also appears to show the escaped dog’s owner on the ground, possibly trying to restrain their dog.
The officer said that the escaped dog “pounced” on her pet, started to attack it by biting near its neck and “mauling aggressively and at fast speed,” she said in a tactical response report filed with the Chicago Police Department.
COPA said preliminary information suggests that shortly after the owner had attempted to intervene and “as the owner was regaining control,” the off-duty officer drew her weapon and fired one shot at the dog.
The dog was killed as a result of the shot. No human was struck as a result.
"I believed my dog would be killed in that in a split moment if I did not intervene,” the officer claimed in the report.
In the surveillance footage, the owner appears to be on the ground in the street after possibly trying to gain control of their pet, who running around with the officer’s corgi, then the sound of a shot fired can be heard.
The owner of the shot dog can then be heard saying, "You shot my dog! Why?” before continuing to shout.
Ms Mostek and her own dog appear to briskly leave the scene, according to the video. She placed a 911 after the incident.
"Hi, I’m an off-duty PO. I’m at 29th and Normal. There was a dog attacking my dog and I had to shoot it, and the neighbor’s freaking out,” she said in the call released by the organisation.
Due to the “serious nature” of the incident, COPA has recommended that the Chicago Police Department should evaluate the current assignment of the officer, and whether administrative duties or relief of power is warranted as the investigation continues.
The police department said in initial reports from the time that no citations were issued during this incident.
