The New York Police Department is coming under scrutiny after security camera footage captured a cop shooting a pit bull inside a Bronx apartment building in February.
The dog owner, Yvonne Rosado, is threatening to file a lawsuit against the NYPD, saying the shooting was unnecessary and unprovoked.
Police responded to a domestic abuse call at an apartment building on Feb. 13. Video shows two officers speaking to a neighbour of Rosado’s who had been involved in a domestic dispute.
According to Rosado, her beloved pooch, Spike, began barking due to people standing outside her apartment door.
Wondering what was going on, Rosado went to the door to see who was outside.
“When I realized that it was an officer in front of the door, I said, ‘He’s friendly! He’s friendly!’” Rosado told CBS2 in New York.
The video then appears to show Spike slipping out of the apartment and approaching the officers.
According to the time stamp on the video, the officer immediately drew his gun as the pit bull stood in the hallway.
The footage appears to show Spike wagging his tail and looking at both officers before approaching the armed officer.
That is when it appears the officer backs down a set of stairs and pulls the trigger, shooting Spike point-blank in the head.
“The officer just started backing away and I thought he was pointing his finger at him, but he pointed the gun and shot,” Rosado said. “Everything happened in less than one minute.”
The video shows it was just six seconds between Spike exiting the apartment and the moment the dog is seen collapsing from the bullet.
Rosado rushed from her apartment, joined by neighbours Irma Santiago and her daughter Serena.
“He was still wagging his tail as he was dying,” Rosado said. “It’s the worst thing.”
The video appears to later show Rosado confronting officers in the stairwell, but is taken down by three cops.
“They jumped on top of me,” Rosado described.
“They pinned her down to the stairs,” said Santiago. “Her whole back was black and blue.”
Rosado says she is still tormented by the incident.
“It’s like a tearing inside that I feel every day when I open that door and I see that in my head — him just lying there twitching,” Rosado said.
“He was a member of the family,” Rosado told the New York Daily News. “He would wag his tail, letting everyone know he was friendly.”
“He was my beloved, and now he’s gone.”
Despite acknowledging that “the officer just reacted badly,” Rosado has filed a notice of claim for a possible lawsuit against the city, and is planning to file a grievance with New York’s Civilian Complaint Review Board.
Police have launched an investigation into the incident, but refused to make an official comment when contacted by Global News, saying the case was “under internal review.”
NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton did speak to CBS about the incident.
“The questions come up should he have used pepper spray, did he need to shoot at all. That will all be part of the investigation,” Bratton said.
Bratton went on to say that it is up to the individual officer to understand the situation, and make a decision whether to use a taser, pepper spray or gun.
“He will have to justify what was going through his mind at that particular time,” said Bratton.