Cop Dog Killers

Another Day, Another Cop Shoots a Dog

It's time to teach the police some new tricks.

A. Barton Hinkle |

A police officer chasing a suspect entered Bianca Alakson's fenced-in backyard the other day. When her 10-month-old Labrador-mix puppy ran toward the Redford Township, Ohio, officer, he shot the dog twice, killing it. Alakson's boyfriend, Ryan Showalter, ran outside and demanded to know why. He was arrested for interfering with an investigation.

"I asked him why," Showalter said. "And he said, 'Because he was in our way.' I was breaking down hysterically in the back seat of the cop car, crying. I didn't know what to do."

This wasn't long after Cole Middleton, a resident of Raines County, Texas, called the police to report that his house had been burgled. When an officer arrived Middleton's dog started barking. According to news reports, "the deputy claimed the dog was about to bite him and shot the dog to defend himself. … Middleton says the dog was shot in the head. He begged the deputy to finish off his cowdog named Candy since the dog was suffering."

"I was so upset," Middleton told KLTV-7 News. "I went over there to her and she was still alive and I begged and pleaded with him to please shoot her again because I don't have any firearms. They got stolen. He went and got in his vehicle and backed out of my driveway.

"And then I had to do the unthinkable. … I had to kill my dog with my bare hands and put her out of her suffering, praying for this to be over with," Middleton said.

Those are just two of many cases in which police officers have killed family pets recently and without any apparent justification. There have been countless others. Police entered a back yard in Mobile, Alabama, encountered a dog, and shot it. A Tehachapi, California, officer saw a dog run toward him while he was performing routine code enforcement checks. "He just pulled out his gun and boom, boom, boom," reported a witness. An officer responding to a complaint about a moving van in the street in Columbus, Ohio, shot a dog nine times after it growled at him. And in Filer, Idaho, an officer shot a dog whose owner was throwing his 9-year-old son a birthday party. You can watch the dash-cam video (warning: strong content and language) by Googling "officer shoots dog at boy’s birthday party."

In most such cases, what happens afterward is: nothing. The police department says it will investigate the shooting, and then the incident disappears into a circular file or a black hole. Not always: The Texas officer who shot Middleton's dog was fired. But the police department in Filer decided officer Tarek Hassani was justified in using deadly force against a family pet.

Fortunately, some police departments have begun training officers in how to read animal behavior. Most dogs that feel threatened don't run toward the perceived threat, for instance—they run away. "An approaching dog is almost always friendly," according to a Justice Department report, "The Problem of Dog-Related Incidents and Encounters." Here in Virginia some departments do a better job than others. But the commonwealth has not passed a law requiring such training, as Colorado has.

Meanwhile, public pressure to protect dogs is mounting. Filer residents were so upset by its department's decision that some launched a recall effort to unseat the mayor and the entire city council. A Kickstarter campaign has raised more than $45,000 for the documentary Puppycide.

"When we first learned about puppycide," the filmmakers write, "we assumed that these must be cases of police responding to threats on their lives from dogs trained to attack by criminal owners. That couldn't be further from the truth. We found scores of videos and news stories about dogs who were laying down, tails wagging, even running away but still shot by officers who used lethal force as their first and only response."

Nobody wants to see police officers—already underpaid and underappreciated—get hurt in the line of duty. What people object to is the gratuitous slaughter of pets that pose no threat. Officers couldn't shoot children with such impunity, and many pet owners love their animals almost as much as their kids.

That shouldn't be surprising. A special bond between people and dogs has developed over thousands of years of domestication.

Recent work by Hungarian researchers has shown that dogs can read emotion in human voices and, as The Washington Post reported the other day, "other studies have revealed that dogs yawn when they see humans yawning and that they nuzzle and lick people who are crying; scientists consider both behaviors displays of empathy, a rarely documented trait in the animal kingdom."

If dogs can read other species' behavior signals and show empathy toward them, then surely police officers should be able to as well.

Esther Cepeda: Dogs and the warrior cops

If Radley Balko is right, it may be the dog lovers of America who touched off a movement to rein in the strong-arm tactics that have accompanied the militarization of the country's police forces.

By Esther Cepeda

If Radley Balko is right, it may be the dog lovers of America who touched off a movement to rein in the strong-arm tactics that have accompanied the militarization of the country’s police forces.

Balko, who writes The Washington Post’s “The Watch” blog on criminal justice issues, says that police these days too frequently shoot people’s pets when making a raid, and people are becoming fed up.

I recently read Balko’s book, “Rise of the Warrior Cop: The Militarization of America’s Police Forces,” after spending some time in a firearms class. In that class was a retired policeman who firmly subscribed to the “us vs. them” mentality Balko so vividly illustrates.

Starting with a history of law enforcement, Balko follows its tenuous flirtation with the norms and practices of the armed forces to today’s proliferation of S.W.A.T.-like local police departments. He provides a painful history of the progression from President Richard Nixon’s War on Drugs through the decades-long erosion of private citizens’ rights to have their homes treated as sanctuary from violence to the all-too-common “collateral damage” incidents that dot our news feeds.

No one, and no political party, is spared from a scathing critique of the wisdom of soldiering-up local police officers and making violent, highly militarized raids everyday occurrences. Notably, Balko’s sources are less often the innocent victims of botched raids, accidental shootings, wrong-address nighttime blitzes and flash-bomb takedowns — or their advocates — though their stories come through clearly.

Mostly, the voices of those speaking out about the dangers of invade-and-conquer law enforcement are of professionals in the field who either carried out militarization programs themselves or tried, in vain, to keep brute force — and its accompanying mindset — from encroaching on their beloved profession.

Balko provides seemingly endless examples of state-sanctioned violence and paramilitary-style policing even as he fairly portrays the danger that law enforcement officials have to deal with in their demanding jobs. It cannot be said enough that “Rise of the Warrior Cop” is in no way a partisan, overly emotional or pacifist anti-police screed — but learning how calloused we’ve all become to this type of enforcement stopped me cold.

Balko cites anecdotal evidence among his network of law enforcement researchers and educators showing that too often people calmly accept that unwarranted violations of privacy and violent tactics are appropriate for “bad guys,” murderers and drug dealers, even their wives and children. But they get very angry when they hear about pets being harmed and routinely killed.

“At first, that may seem to indicate that people callously value the lives of pets more than the lives of people,” Balko writes. “But the fact that killing the dog during these raids has become nearly routine in many police agencies demonstrates just how casually those agencies have come to accept drug war collateral damage. When I started logging cop-shoots-dog incidents on my blog (under the probably sensational term ‘puppycide’), people began sending me new stories as they happened. Cops are now shooting dogs at the slightest provocation. As of this writing, I’m sent accounts of a few incidents each week.”

The public outcry about pets as collateral damage has actually gotten a handful of police departments to mandate training, Balko writes. He quotes Russ Jones, a former narcotics officer with the San Jose Police Department and the Drug Enforcement Agency: “I don’t understand it at all. I guess somewhere along the line a cop shot a dog under questionable circumstances and got away with it. Word got out, and now it seems like some cops are just looking for reasons to take a shot at a dog. Maybe it just comes down to that — we can get away with it, therefore we do it.”

If Balko gets one point across, it’s that the days of law enforcement getting away with strong-arm and often deadly tactics in the name of maintaining safety and order are coming to an end.

The proliferation of mobile phones with cameras, video that can be remotely streamed directly to the Internet and the instantaneous sharing of both through social media are making it so that evidence of law enforcement overreach can be preserved as proof.

But first, we have to be aware that these instances of overly harsh tactics affect innocent, law-abiding citizens — not just the canine kind — and we can no longer afford to accept our civil rights getting so blithely trampled.

Cop camera turned off during violent arrest

By Frank Fernandez

A Daytona Beach police officer has resigned following an incident in which his body camera did not record an entire confrontation, which included another officer sticking a flashlight into a woman’s mouth, a report states.

Officer Justin Ranum resigned July 23 while under investigation for the incomplete body camera video. And according to a report, Officer Matthew Booth was fired Jan. 8, partly because he stuck a metal flashlight in a woman’s mouth to keep it open.

What Booth described as “the flashlight technique” is not an approved tactic by the Daytona Beach Police Department, according to a report finding that Booth violated department directives. The report also found that Booth violated directives when he stuck his fingers in Christine Chippewa’s mouth to try and retrieve drugs he believed she had.

Police Chief Mike Chitwood said Ranum’s body camera was sent to Taser to check why it did not record the entire encounter and Ranum was given another body camera. Then Chitwood said there was a second incident in which Ranum’s body camera was not running.

The officer resigned before the camera audit was completed. But the audit came back that the camera did not film the entire arrest because it was turned off manually, a policy violation, Chitwood said.

“If you follow the policy, we have no problems whatsoever,” Chitwood said. “It’s when officers deviate from the policy that we have a problem. And the policy is there to protect the officer and protect the community. It’s really simple. Nobody likes change, but change is here.”

It was not the first time Ranum had been in trouble. In December 2010, Ranum and another officer were fired after they were acquitted of criminal mischief charges. The two were arrested Sept. 2, 2010, nearly a month after banging on a woman’s trailer hoping to flush out a suspect. Records indicate the trailer sustained $1,700 worth of damage. The judge in the case said prosecutors failed to show the two officers damaged the trailer with intent and malice. Ranum was rehired about a year later.

Booth violated several policies during Chippewa’s arrest on about 3:30 a.m. on June 13, 2013, near the boat ramps on the eastern span of the Seabreeze Bridge. Booth also violated directives by striking Chippewa in the head, either by kicking her or with a knee strike. It was unclear which he did because at different times Booth claimed to have done one or the other, leading to a finding that he violated a directive having to do with making a false report.

Booth told internal affairs investigators that he stuck his metal flashlight into Chippewa’s mouth because Ranum said she was trying to swallow illegal narcotics, the report states.

After using the flashlight, Booth “forced his fingers against the outside of Chippewa’s cheeks” as he tried to get the alleged narcotics, the report said. That’s another practice not approved by the department unless it is used to save someone’s life, which Booth admitted was not the circumstance, the report states.

Booth said he did not see any signs that Chippewa was having medical problems from the alleged overdose and did not call paramedics.

Booth said he kicked Chippewa in the head because she bit him hard through her cheeks. Booth then stuck his fingers inside her mouth, the report states.

Chippewa, 37, was charged with tampering with physical evidence and obstructing an officer without violence. No drugs were found on Chippewa and she did not suffer any ill effects that would have indicated she swallowed drugs.

The State Attorney’s Office declined to file charges.

Chippewa has retained attorney Jonathan Rotstein, who has sent a notice of claim to the city, the first step before any lawsuit would be filed.

Chippewa has prior convictions from 2010 cases of possession of schedule IV substance and possession of drug paraphernalia. She also has prior convictions from 2009 cases of introduction of contraband into a correctional facility and resisting an officer without violence.

Cop shoots, kills dog while chasing suspect through backyard

A Redford Township police officer is being accused of killing a 10-month-old lab/pit bull mix. The officer was chasing a suspect through a backyard when the officer claims the young puppy charged at him. He claimed he fired two shots because he feared for his life. When the dog's owner came out to demand answers police arrested him and charged with interfering with a police investigation.

Police shoot Trenton family's dog 3 times, killing Poodie

By David Foster,

TRENTON — Oweeta Derry received a call from a neighbor telling her that the family’s Cane Corso was outside of her gate in the backyard chasing a cat.

What happened next shocked her.

“When I got there, a cop said they shot her,” Derry said Wednesday afternoon, a day after Poodie was killed.

“They shot her once in the chest because a police officer said she jumped at him,” Derry said of the 1-year-old dog.

“But why would you then shoot her again twice again in the back?” she questioned. “What was the purpose of that? You had already hit her in the chest.”

A New Jersey State Police trooper and a member of the Mercer County Prosecutor’s Office were executing an arrest warrant at 12:30 p.m. Tuesday in an alleyway on the first block of West End Avenue near Derry’s home when Poodie appeared, according NJSP Capt. Stephen Jones.

“This very large dog ran out from behind from a backyard area where there was a fence that wasn’t secured,” Jones said Wednesday. “It ran out of the yard of an abandoned property and charged at the trooper and officer. They both discharged rounds striking the dog and the dog ran away.”

The officers later found the dog dead in the rear parking lot of Cadwalader Elementary School.

“It’s very sad when this type of thing has to happen,” Jones said. “It unfortunately comes down to protecting life and limb there when you’re dealing with a large aggressive animal.”

But Derry said Poodie was anything but aggressive.

“She’s a big baby,” said Derry, who just tied the knot last Monday. “Of course she’s a big dog, but she was a really sweet, humble-type dog. She was very friendly and playful.”

Derry’s husband, Dwayne, said cops came onto the scene with their guns drawn.

“Why are they going in the back with their guns drawn from the beginning?” he questioned. “What is your purpose of going in the back of someone’s house with your gun drawn?”

Dwayne Derry said they could have ordered Poodie to stop.

“She likes to play,” he said. “When she sees people, she jumps up wanting to play because she’s a playful dog, but shooting her three times was unnecessary.”

The Derrys suggested cops could have pepper-strayed Poodie or shot in the air.

“They claimed she came at him, but even if that’s the case, he could have shot in the air or shot her in the leg,” Oweeda Derry said. “Why shoot her in her chest and shoot her twice times in the back?”

Describing proper procedure, Jones explained when a dog is charging, they often move fast.

“If a situation is occurring and shots are fired within a second, it’s not a matter of knowing that you hit a dog and that’s the end of it,” he said. “You got to stop the threat.”

Jones ruled out other possible uses of force against the animal. The captain said neither officer was carrying a Taser, but it wouldn’t have mattered anyway.

“That’s generally not too effective on a charging animal,” Jones saidPepper spray is clearly not effective on most dogs.”

In the end, Jones said situations like this are a matter of officer safety.

“If they’re there legally serving a warrant on the premises and somebody has a dog that is not controlled, it might be a situation where it’s just simply a matter of officer safety,” he said.

As of Wednesday night, the Derrys said they were still awaiting a call back from the state trooper on the scene to obtain a police report

Police shoot dog in yard during search

Witnesses say 12-year-old male pitbull inside fenced yard was not lunging, growling or barking.

Police shot a dog Tuesday in North Toledo while executing a search warrant with the SWAT team.

People at the scene said officers shot Schrecongost’s 12-year-old male pitbull that had been inside the fenced yard when police arrived.

Police allegedly shot the dog — which onlookers said was not lunging, growling, or barking — from the sidewalk in front of the house before entering the gate.

Police officials could not be reached for comment later Tuesday, but department policy states, “Officers may use a firearm to destroy a dangerous animal that poses an immediate threat to the officer or others.”

The dog did not die on the scene, but people there said it was shot twice with a shotgun and suffered significant jaw and shoulder injuries. The dog was taken to a veterinary hospital to be euthanized and was then buried in the yard with neighbors’ help.

Cop Who Killed Beloved Dog Indicted Could Face Jail Time After Grand Jury Indictment

By Dominic Kelly

Last month, Opposing Views told you about Jerrod Dooley, the Texas cop who fatally shot a dog while responding to a home invasion. Now, a grand jury has indicted the former sheriff’s deputy on an animal cruelty charge that could land him in jail.

Dooley, a 32-year-old Rains County officer, was immediately fired from the department following the incident. Cole Middleton, owner of the beloved dog named Candy, took to social media to share his story after his dog was killed. Middleton says that he called the police to report that his home had been broken into and items had been stolen, but when Dooley arrived, the officer fired shots through the back of Candy’s head, going through her eyes.

“I was so upset,” said Middleton. “I went over there to her and she was still alive and I begged and pleaded with him to please shoot her again because I don’t have any firearms. They got stolen. He went and got in his vehicle and backed out of my driveway. And then I had to do the unthinkable, the otherwise unthinkable. I had to kill my dog with my bare hands and put her out of her suffering, praying for this to be over with.”

From the start, Dooley claimed that the dog had charged towards him and that he was left with no choice but to shoot it, but a veterinarian confirmed that the dog was shot behind its head, so she had to have had her back turned to him when the shots were fired.

Dooley was promptly fired and within just a couple of weeks, a grand jury indicted him on animal cruelty charges that could land him in jail. His attorney Pete Schulte says that the charges are too harsh and they are hoping to be able to provide a clear vision of what happened on the day of the incident once they are in court.

"This is clearly a political knee jerk reaction by the DA in Rains County and there’s no chance that this case will stand up in court," said Schulte. "It’s a legal impossibility because he was acting within the scope of his employment as a public servant. We look forward to our day in court. They indicted him within two weeks. That never happens.”

Dooley insists that he did what he had to do and says that the attention this story has received has been overwhelming.

“I can’t go to the grocery store without being recognized, pointed at, laughed at," said Dooley. "Can't pay my water bill without hearing my name, saying 'There's the sorry cop that killed the dog.’”

Cop Dog Killers: Cop Tries to Shoot Dog, Ends Up Shooting Himself

Cop Dog Killers: Cop Tries to Shoot Dog, Ends Up Shooting Himself: Adan Salazar A California sheriff’s deputy is feeling the sting of humiliation after he attempted to shoot a fenced-in dog, but failed,...

Cop Dog Killers: Sicko cop shoots Texas man’s dog on sight

Cop Dog Killers: Sicko cop shoots Texas man’s dog on sight: An East Texas man is sad and furious after a sheriff’s deputy shot his dog, Candy, without provocation. The shot did not kill the dog i...

Sicko cop shoots Texas man’s dog on sight

An East Texas man is sad and furious after a sheriff’s deputy shot his dog, Candy, without provocation.

The shot did not kill the dog instantaneously. The man, Cole Middleton of Rains County, Texas, was forced to put Candy out of her misery with his own bare hands.

Middleton owns a dairy farm, and Candy was his cattle-herding dog, according to KLTV 7.

The officer came to the house in response to Middleton’s 911 call. Middleton made the call around 11:00 AM, after returning to his home and finding it robbed. Middleton was in his fields when the officer showed up. He was hurrying back to the house when the deputy shot Candy.

According to Middleton, the shooting was baseless. Candy did not bite or threaten the officer.

“She’s barking when he pulls into the driveway letting me know someone’s at our house, an intruder is here, or a person who she would think was an intruder that she’s unfamiliar with,” he said. “She’s barking. The officer gets out of his car, and all the while we’re headed up [there]. He gets out of his car and shoots my dog in my front yard.”

Though shot in the head, Candy did not die immediately. Middleton had no gun of his own — his weapons were stolen — and tearfully begged the deputy to put down the dog. The deputy refused.

“And then I had to do the unthinkable, the otherwise unthinkable,” he said. “I had to kill my dog with my bare hands and put her out of her suffering, praying for this to be over with.”

Other officers soon appeared at the farm, tasers and pistols drawn. They demanded to know whose blood was all over Middleton’s shirt.

“That is the blood of my dog that I was holding because this deputy pulled up and shot her in my yard,” he told them.

Cop Tries to Shoot Dog, Ends Up Shooting Himself

Adan Salazar

A California sheriff’s deputy is feeling the sting of humiliation after he attempted to shoot a fenced-in dog, but failed, succeeding only in shooting himself.

The deputy, who works with the Riverside County Court Services Division, was reportedly serving an eviction notice at a Riverside home on Wednesday at around 2p.m. when a “large dog” approached him.

Police say the pit bull, who can be seen in footage shot by Los Angeles NBC affiliate KNBC being playful and friendly with several children, attacked the officer, forcing him to draw his weapon.

“A large pit bull breed dog attacked the deputy,” an investigator told KNBC. “In defense of himself, he fired one round at the dog and inadvertently struck himself in the leg.”

The dog’s owner, Jorge Rodriguez, says his dog never attacked.

“The officer got scared and unfortunately pulled his gun and he shot himself,” Rodriguez says. “He was in pain, man, I feel sorry for the officer.”

The officer sustained non-life threatening injuries and is being treated at the Riverside Community hospital.

Reports say the Department of Animal Services won’t take action against the dog as she was legally within a fenced enclosure. No word on whether the officer will be investigated for mishandling his firearm.

Alabama Cop Shoots Two Family Dogs, Kills One And Injures Second

By Khier Casino

An Alabama police officer shot two dogs, killing one and injuring a second, after entering a closed backyard while searching for trespassers.

Mark and Lynn Yeager, of Mobile, Ala., buried one of their dogs after seeing the officer shoot him in their yard, FOX10tv.com reports.

“I understand that they’re trying to do their job. My dog was trying to do his job and there has to be a happy medium,” said Mark Yeager. “I don’t think they used good common sense.”

According to police, officials apprehended two individuals near Murphy High School who ultimately fled. Officers say they were pursuing the suspects and eventually went into the Yeager’s yard, awakening the two pets who they say were aggressive toward the officers.

“I saw the policeman backing up with his gun pointed – heard two shots,” said Yeager. “I went ballistic. I mean I couldn’t believe it. He lay there about 15 minutes and I sat there and petted him and talked to him till he died.”

Kevin Kelly has been identified as the Mobile Police Department officer who fatally shot the homeowner’s dog, according to LagniappeMobile.com.

Mobile police and Internal Affairs both responded, and investigations are being conducted into the shooting of Yeager’s dogs.

The other dog, Bovidea, was shot in the ear. The Yeager’s are focusing on the surviving dog’s recovery.

"Common sense will tell you to knock on the door of the residence and let them know that there was some people running around that could be dangerous. If they had done that then at that point in time I would have told them never to come into my backyard or I could've got the dogs inside where they belong in their kennels, and everything would have been fine," Yeager told local CBS affiliate WKRG-TV.

The Yeagers are not happy with what police are telling them and they are left with questions they want answered. They intend to write a letter to the city councilman and the Mobile Police Chief.

According to FOX10 News, police eventually arrested the suspects.

Friend says police shooting of dogs unwarranted

By B.J. Williams Editor

Phantom is the 2-year-old male dog shot and killed Monday by Toccoa police

TOCCOA - A Lavonia woman who is a part-owner of one of the dogs shot and killed by Toccoa police on Monday said the shooting of the animals was uncalled for.

Cindy Smith said in an interview Thursday the two dogs - who were pit bulls - were gentle animals. She and her husband breed pit bulls, and have done so for about 15 years, and she said the young dogs killed Monday were two that she had raised from pups.

She believes the only reason Phantom, the male dog, and Tsunami, the female, attacked a neighbor's dog was because the smaller animal came onto an enclosed front porch where the pit bulls lived. Smith said she knows the dogs were in a secured area at the time of the incident.

"Their front porch has a railing around it as well as a gate on the front porch that has to be opened from the inside," said Smith. "The neighbor's dog, who was not contained - and he does not have a fence - his dog wandered onto their property onto the porch...and it was eating their dogs' food."

Thus, said Smith, the two pit bulls protected their property.

Smith said when her friend, whom she chose not to name, arrived home for lunch, Toccoa police had already shot and killed both dogs. Smith said she thinks the officers overreacted.

"They [the police] should have sat in their car because the dogs were on their property. They should have waited until the owners got home to take care of the matter instead of shooting the dogs."

Toccoa Police Chief Tim Jarrell said in a statement that the officers fired on the two dogs when the animals failed to respond to voice commands to stop attacking the smaller dog. He said the officers reported the two animals charged at them. (See link to earlier story below.)

The owners of Phantom and Tsunami face several charges from animal control officers, and Smith said she doesn't feel that's fair, especially since the owner of the smaller dog that wandered onto the porch faces no charges for his pet roaming free.

"I feel like they [police] shot because of what they are [pit bulls]," said Smith. "If it had been a lab or a retriever or any other kind of breed, I think they would have done anything in their power to not have to shoot the animals."

Smith said she isn't sure if her friends will try to register any kind of complaint against the Toccoa Police Department, but she said her goal in speaking out was simply to tell the other side of the story. She said if her friends do wind up going to court, she plans to organize a rally to support them.

"If and when they have a court date, if these charges do not get dropped...I'm hoping to get enough people to come to the courthouse with their pit bulls to do kind of like a peaceful protest to raise awareness that these dogs are being portrayed as something they're not."

Family says El Paso police officer shoots their three-legged dog

By: Stacey Welsh

EL PASO, Texas -- An east El Paso family said an officer from the El Paso Police Department shot their pit bull when responding to their home last week.

Owner Deborah Hawthorne said she doesn't understand why an officer would shoot at her dog, Gracie, because she was already missing a leg after being hit by a car. Gracie did survive the shooting.

"She's handicapped. She's not a threat. She can't charge really. She never has charged," Hawthorne said.

Hawthorne said this all started when her husband got into an argument with someone else earlier that night. Because she said her husband was holding a knife, that person reported it to the police.

She said she is also upset the shooting happened in front of her 11-year-old daughter.

"When [the police officer] discharged that weapon, it ricochet off the concrete and the house. It almost went through my daughter's legs. It was right there at the door so she could have been hit," Hawthorne said.

Hawthorne said two officers responded to her home, and one fired at Gracie. The shot hit her in her only back paw.

"I saw the officer in the yard. He was off in an angle to the house in the shadows. I saw a flash and the smoke come up and that's when I saw Gracie crawling toward me," Hawthorne said.

She also said the officers did not identify themselves.

"I asked them at least five times what their names were and what their badge numbers were. They did not talk to me. They refused to tell me anything about my husband," Hawthorne said.

The El Paso Police Department said it won't comment on the case now because it's still under investigation.

"As in all cases where an El Paso police officer discharges their weapon, these cases are thoroughly investigated by the Department’s Shooting Review Team. This case is assigned to the Internal Affairs Division," El Paso Police Department spokesman Detective Darrel Petry said in a statement.

Hawthorne said she also plans to file charges against the Police Department.