By Ashley B. Craig,
A national dog advocacy group is stepping up to offer
help to a Mason County family whose dog was shot by State Police. The “Justice
for Willy Pete” Facebook page announced Tuesday that The Lexus Project, founded
four years ago by a New York-based couple who took legal action to rescue a
greyhound from being euthanized, had taken up the case.Richard Rosenthal,
co-founder and general counsel for The Lexus Project, said the group only
recently began taking such cases. “It’s becoming an epidemic,” Rosenthal said.
“It’s not dogs running loose, it’s officers going into yards.”He said they now
receive three to five calls a week about a police-related shooting.Rosenthal is
teaming up with local attorney Trent Redman. He said he plans to sue the West
Virginia State Police and Sgt. S.T. Harper within the next two weeks.“We’re in
the midst of putting together all the facts and getting our ducks in a row,”
Rosenthal said. He said he would travel to West Virginia in the next few days
to meet with Redman, and Ginger and Jeremy Sweat, Willy Pete’s owners.Ginger
Sweat told the Daily Mail last month that the 6-year-old beagle-bassett hound
mix left the porch of her rural Ashton area home and went to meet troopers
coming out of the woods nearby. The troopers were members of the State Police
Special Response Team. They had with them a leashed police dog and were
searching for a man accused of threatening his wife and firing a shot at a
Mason sheriff’s deputy.Ginger Sweat was inside when she saw through a window
that the officer had his weapon raised at her dog, which she said suffered from
arthritis.She said she ran outside screaming and pleading with the officer not
to shoot. She said the trooper, later identified by State Police as Harper,
fired one shot at the dog but missed, sending the dog running back to her.She
said Harper fired three more times at the dog as it ran in her direction. The
dog died behind her home. According to the Facebook page, a necropsy performed
on the dog showed the animal had been shot in the back.State Police apologized
in a statement, issued a week after the June 24 shooting, but stood by the
officer’s actions.Troopers said the report from the investigation showed Willy
Pete charged toward officers while they were in the road and “growled and bared
his teeth as he continued toward Diego,” the police dog at the scene.Troopers
said Harper shot the dog three times when the dog was within 10 feet of the
police dog and five feet from him. Harper has been a member of the State Police’s
K-9 Unit for 14 years, the last two he spent as instructor. The sergeant was
said in the statement to be “well-versed in canine body language and canine
behavior.”“Based upon his observations that Willie (sic) Pete’s hackles were
raised, he was growling and his teeth were barred as well as the fact the dog
could not be deterred by two other means of non-lethal force from advancing
toward K-9 Officer Diego and the WVSP SRT members, Sgt. Harper made the
decision to shoot the dog,” the statement said.State troopers have shot and
killed 15 dogs in the last four years including Willy Pete, the Charleston
Gazette reported Tuesday. Harper shot three of those dogs in that time
frame.“We’re talking about an arthritic beagle-type dog that was shot in the
back, in his own yard, in front of his family, by a police officer — who this
is the third dog in four years he’s shot,” Rosenthal said.He said leadership in
the police department should stand up and tell the officers they won’t tolerate
that kind of behavior.“It is unfortunate that the government instead of being
outraged is a party to the cover-up and I think that’s the bigger crime,”
Rosenthal said. “It’s unfortunate that it’s happened.“The police department is
complicit in it by not expressing outrage and not disciplining officers unless
in the most egregious cases. The rest of the cases, it’s a wink and shrug and
they stand behind the thin blue line.”Rosenthal said the family would seek
damages. He hopes the jury will award a large verdict, sending the message that
the people won’t accept the needless killing of animals.He also has hope for an
injunction barring officers from shooting dogs and requiring police departments
to provide realistic animal training.Rosenthal is providing his services at no
charge, but the family is accepting donations to help pay for court fees.
Donations can be made at
www.youcaring.com/nonprofits/justice-for-willy-pete/204466.Contact writer
Ashley B. Craig at ashley.craig@dailymailwv.com or 304-348-4850.
