The home security video shows the cop enter the backyard and as both inquisitive dogs calmly approach the officer, he discharges his weapon. Moments later the cop can be seen jumping over the backyard fence.
According to owner Jennifer LeMay, Rocko and Ciroc, both Staffordshire bull terriers, miraculously survived the incident despite one being shot in the face and the other receiving multiple gunshot wounds.
The house alarm was accidentally triggered by one of LeMay’s daughters at 8:50 p.m., but was quickly deactivated at 8:54 p.m. following a call to the security company. At 9:15 p.m., two officers arrived at the home, but failed to knock on the front door to announce their presence, LeMay told the Star Tribune.
“I told the sergeant I would’ve rather he shoot me than my dogs,” LeMay told local station Fox 9. “These aren’t just our dogs they’re our family members.”
As physician-prescribed service dogs, Ciroc helped to maintain emotional regulation and alleviate anxiety while Rocko was trained to identify seizures for LeMay’s children.
According to the police report filed by one of the responding officers, “two large size pitbulls charged at the officer,” prompting him to “dispatch the two dogs, causing them to run back into the residence.”
“My dog wasn’t even moving, lunging toward him or anything… my dogs were doing their job on my property.”
The Minneapolis Police Department has launched an investigation, reviewing both the home surveillance video and the officer’s body camera footage, and no information has been released by law enforcement regarding the shooting.
The identities of the officer who filed the report and the cop that shot the dogs have been withheld.
Since the shooting, a GoFundMe page established to help LeMay pay for the dogs’ costly medical bills had raised more than $20,000 as of Monday afternoon.
