Just a bit of discretion for animal lovers out there, this video shows police shooting a dog that was defending its owner. Not an easy thing to watch if you’re a pet owner.
The police department of Hawthorne, California, is coming under fire after citizen Leon Rosby has complained that officers arrested him and then shot his dog. He’s got video to back it up, too.
The video shows Leon walking his dog and filming some sort of police activity in the street. After Leon had placed his Rottweiler, Max, in his car officers complained that Leon was playing his music too loudly and proceeded to arrest him. That’s when things turned ugly.
The dog becomes upset and starts to bark, then jumps out of Leon’s car during the arrest. While officers are walking Leon to a squad car the dog approaches officers to investigate the situation that’s going on with its owner. After reaching for the dog’s leash and feeling threatened one of the cops shoots the dog several times. Max begins writhing on the ground, yelping in pain while a crowd of horrified spectators watch on.
Max died in the street and naturally, his owner Leon is outraged at the way Hawthorne officers handled the situation.
There was no way Max should have died like that. Max was only protecting his master. He was trying to stop them from beating on me.”
Hawthorne police see things a different way, citing that when the dog lunged after an officer reached to grab its leash they had no choice but to open fire. Lt. Scott Swain of Hawthorne Police feels the officers were not only protecting themselves but Leon also. “I know it’s the dog’s master, and more than likely not going to attack him, (but) we’ve got a guy handcuffed that’s kind of defenseless. We have a duty to defend him, too,” said Swain.
Rosby believes that police held a grudge against him because of previous run-ins with the law including resisting, battery, and d.u.i. Leon Rosby spent the night in jail and was released Monday morning. Sadly, he didn’t have Max to welcome him home.
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Via Daily Breeze