Missouri police officer shoots deaf and blind dog Teddy in disturbing video

US News

From Katherine Donlevy

A Missouri police officer shot and killed a beloved deaf and blind dog on Sunday. He initially claimed he wanted to put the dog out of his misery, but then backtracked, saying he feared for his life because the 13-pound puppy was carrying him.

The disturbing murder was captured on the officer's bodycam footage – and occurred just three minutes after the officer arrived and found the escaped dog exploring a neighbor's yard.

“If you watch the video, you can see that the dog is very playful and happy and turns his head when he notices someone is there. He is looking for someone to touch him, like he always does,” grieving owner Nicolas Hunter told The Post on Friday evening.

“His behavior throughout the video is not aggressive. He never bares his teeth, never barks or growls, and never makes any attempt to bite… Zero aggression, which is what I expect from Teddy, he's always been like that.”

Hunter plans to sue the city of Sturgeon, which has vehemently defended its officer's actions in the days since the shooting – which has sparked outrage in the city of 900 residents.

He was having dinner with friends in Columbia when he received a call from a friend around 5 p.m. telling him that his five-year-old white Shih Tzu mix, Teddy, had been reported in a local Facebook group as a lost puppy roaming a neighbor's lawn.

Hunter immediately began the 25-minute drive home to pick up the lost dog, but he was not even halfway there when his friend called back with terrible news.

“It was a big shock and it was hard to hear that. At first I just thought, 'No, that has to be someone else's dog, that has to be a mistake.' But then I called the police and later found out that it was my dog ​​that was shot,” Hunter recalled.

When the grieving owner arrived at the scene, the officer admitted that Teddy did not pose a threat, but explained that he thought the pup was a stray and that he appeared ill, according to a video obtained by ABC17.

Hunter then asks incredulously: “So you put them [the dog] out of his misery?” to which the officer shockingly replied, “What am I supposed to do, we don't have any damn animal control?”

To make matters worse, the officer then missed a citation for a loose dog, he said.

The city of Sturgeon has staunchly defended its officer for killing the small dog, saying on Thursday that Teddy's “strange behavior appeared to be consistent with a dispatch call for an injured or possibly sick dog.”

However, the horrific bodycam footage tells a different story.

As the police officer responds to an emergency call, he is seen trying to catch the little teddy using a catch pole, but the tiny dog ​​continually evades capture.

Teddy, who was born deaf and went blind two years ago, had escaped from his outdoor kennel after Hunter's other dog, Gizmo, dug a hole under the fence. Teddy's collar got caught in the fence and stayed there while the pup sniffed around in a neighbor's yard just a block away.

“The only time the dog moves is when the officer puts the collar on him. Then he just picks up his head and moves it, and then he continues what he was doing before: just walking – not running – just walking. Trotting,” Hunter said.

Witnesses confirmed Hunter's account, and the woman who called police about the puppy wrote a letter to the city making it clear that she did not consider the dog a threat to the community.

The officer tried to catch the dog for three minutes and then fired two shots – while a 17-year-old neighbor watched, witnesses said.

Although the officer admitted to Hunter that he was not afraid of the dog, the city of Sturgeon later issued a statement saying the officer acted out of fear for his life.

“Believing the dog to be seriously injured or infected with rabies and fearing it may have been bitten and infected with rabies, the officer saw the only option to euthanize the animal,” said the statement, which was posted on Facebook and sparked hundreds of angry comments.

A few days later, the city issued another statement stressing that the “officer acted within the scope of his authority and based on the information available to him at the time to prevent possible injury to citizens from the apparently injured, sick and abandoned dog.”

However, the second statement no longer mentioned rabies. Police did not respond to requests for further comment.

Hunter believes the repeated slip-ups are an attempt to “cover up the mistakes that were made.”

“It was very extreme. The violence he used is unbelievable,” he said.

The trauma of the incident was only made worse by the city's distraction and refusal to respond to his calls, Hunter said, adding that he exhumed poor Teddy's body to prove that he had not tested positive for rabies.

Now Hunter plans to sue the city, claiming the officer acted inappropriately and that the situation has caused him and his family emotional distress while simultaneously grieving the loss of his beloved pet.

“He was always a very energetic dog. Always full of life. I mean, he loved being around people and all kinds of animals, he was just always curious. At the first sign of someone or something, his tail would start wagging as fast as it could and he would jump up and down excitedly,” Hunter said.

“When this happened, he would just move his head wildly just to lick the person petting him. Teddy has never bitten or been aggressive towards people or animals.”