A police officer in Filer, Idaho responded to a call about two dogs
running around without leashes on a suburban street. Thirty-eight seconds after
exiting his patrol car, Officer Tarek Hassani determined that one of the
animals was too aggressive and fatally shot it in the front yard of its owner's
house. Avideo (NSFW) shows the 7-year-old black labrador convulsing and
whimpering before moving out of the dash cam's line of sight.
The dog, named “Hooch,”
belonged to Rick Clubb, who says he suffers from Parkinson's disease and that
Hooch was his trained service animal. At the time of the shooting, Clubb was
apparently inside, hosting his 9-year-old son's birthday party.
Hassani explained to
another officer after the altercation ended, “I get out to talk to the people,
two dogs come around me, one of them's growling and snarling. I kick it. It
comes back around, now it's growling and snarling. I kick it again. Then it
lunges at me, I'm like, fuck you. So, I just shot it.”
Although it is not visible
on the video, the audio picks up the sound of the officer's car door opening
and within two seconds, the pet begins yelping, presumably, as Hassani
acknowledges, because he kicked it.
Hassani gave Clubb a $100
citation for letting the dog run at-large.
Clubb told KTVB, "My
dogs, they'd get out, yes, but you don't have to shoot them. There's other ways
around it besides shooting them." He speculated about the officer's
action,asking the Times-News, “What if [a bullet] had ricocheted through the
window?” Clubb acknowledged, “Maybe I deserve a ticket, but I don't deserve a
dead dog."
Police Chief Tim Reeves
explained to a local Fox affiliate, "My decision was that [Hassani] did a
good job and he was totally justified in putting the dog down."
Zenon Evans is a staff
writer and editor.
