California Police Release New Video of Dog Shooting
Published at
YouTube(HAWTHORNE, Calif.) — The Police Department in Hawthorne, Calif., has released additional footage of one of its officers shooting a Rottweiler while police handcuffed the dog’s owner.
The most recent video shows the police officer unsuccessfully trying to grab the dog, named Max, before it lunged at the police officer. The first video, uploaded to YouTube on July 1, showed the police handcuffing 52-year-old Leon Rosby as Max barked furiously in the car before jumping out to go to try to protect his owner.
The dog lunged at an officer, who subsequently shot him four times, as shown in the video, before the dog rolled over and died. According to a statement released by the Hawthorne Police Department at the time of the shooting, Rosby was arrested for interfering with a robbery investigation. The police said he was blasting his music too loudly and walking his dog too close to the home under investigation.
Rosby’s lawyer, Michael Gulden, told ABC News the police video was simply shot from a different angle and did not exonerate the Hawthorne Police Department in any way. “I think it demonstrates even further the unreasonable failure to attempt to take any number of other non-deadly measures to avoid the killing of this 2-year-old family pet,” said Gulden.
Gulden said he was preparing to file charges on Rosby’s behalf against the police department. “It’s consistent with the other showing that he [Max] was never aggressive and he never charged at officers,” Rosby told ABC News.
After the first video went viral on YouTube, the Hawthorne Police Department became the target of death threats and protests. ABC station KABC in Los Angeles reported that people had protested outside the police station, and that the office had received death threats. A petition on change.org to prosecute the officer who shot the dog has garnered more than 98,000 signatures.
The police said in its original statement that, “fallacies are being perpetuated and outright criminal threats are being made,” and that officers and residents had been incorrectly identified as the shooter. No one from the Hawthorne Police Department was free to comment, explaining that one of its officers had just died in a motorcycle accident. Lt. Swaine told the Huffington Post, ”This video will help us tremendously regarding [Rosby’s] actions prior to his arrest.”
Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio