The Filer Police Department
claims it was a justifiable shooting, but an outraged Rick Clubb plans to sue,
saying, 'Maybe I deserve a ticket, but I don't deserve a dead dog.'
BY DAVID BOROFF /
An Idaho police officer was
caught on video fatally shooting a dog just yards away from the house where a
birthday party was being held for the owner's 9-year-old son.
Dashcam video shows Officer
Tarek Hassani of the Filer Police Department approaching dogs on the street and
shooting Rick Clubb's 7-year-old black Lab.
“He didn’t have to pull out
his .45 and shoot my dog,” Clubb told the Times-News, which obtained the video.
“It was right outside my son’s bedroom. What if it had ricocheted through the
window?”
Authorities say the dog was
being hostile and that the shooting was justified. A neighbor had called the
cops to complain about the loose dogs.
"(Officer Hassani)
tried to get out of his car, both dogs aggressed him at his door, he managed to
get out of his car and had to kick one of the dogs away,” Filer Police Chief
Tim Reeves told KMVT.
Hassani tried to make it to
the house to speak with Clubb, Reeves said, but never made it. In the video,
Officer Hassani can be heard screaming "get back" at the dogs.
"Finally when he kept
trying to come up to the house to talk to the owner, to get the owner to take
control of the dogs he ended up having to shoot the dog for his own
safety," Reeves said. "We never want to have to shoot a dog but
sometimes it happens.”
Clubb told the Times-News
that he has Parkinson's disease and that "Hooch" was his training
dog. He was given a ticket for allowing the dogs to run free. He plans to fight
it.
"I’m going to sue
them, I’m going to sue the City of Filer and the police chief and
officer," Clubb told KMVT. "Maybe I deserve a ticket, but I don't
deserve a dead dog."
