LORAIN, Ohio — Disturbing videos have surfaced on social media of a Lorain dog getting shot by a police officer on Sunday, and it's making a lot of people upset online.
The Labrador retriever died from the injuries.
Owner Tammie Kerns tells 3News four of her dogs got loose early Sunday afternoon and she and her daughter were trying to gather them. She says a Lorain officer pulled up to their home on Oberlin Avenue near 8th Street, got out of his vehicle, and told them to get their dogs under control.
During the commotion, their Labrador retriever named Dixie ran out into the street, with Tammie alleging the officer tried to get her to come to him first. The Kernses told WKYC the officer shot the dog multiple times and that Dixie died at the scene.
"After she was shot one time in the street, he should have just let it go and let us get the dog and take her where she needed to be treated," Tammie said, in tears. "But he didn't do that. She was crawling — useless, helpless — in the street. He continued shooting her. She was trying to come to safety, and he just kept shooting her three more times after the first time."
Kerns claims that the dog did not run towards the officer, but was just running away. She plans to file a lawsuit against Lorain PD and wants the officer fired.
"He should lose his job," she said. "He should go to jail. He should rot. I don't want him to shoot somebody else. He needs to be off the streets. There were innocent bystanders nearby."
Lorain Acting Police Chief Michael Failing released a statement Monday, confirming one of his officers "used force on a dog."
"While all the facts are not yet known, the investigation has been assigned to the Lorain Police Department's Office of Professional Standards to conduct a thorough investigation into the circumstances that led to the use of force," he wrote in the statement.
3News asked a Lorain Police Department spokesperson Monday morning if the officer had been put on leave, and they said no.
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