LAPD releases footage of moment officers shot and killed woman’s dog

The Los Angeles police department has released footage of the moment when officers shot and killed a woman’s dog in the hallway outside her apartment in the Canoga Park neighborhood.

Police had responded to reports of a woman screaming on 13 June, which turned out to be cheering, the night that the New York Knicks defeated the San Antonio Spurs to win the NBA finals.

The body-camera footage shows the moment that the woman, Marie Marseille, opens her door for the officers. Her two-year-old golden Saint Bernard doodle runs to the door and barks at the officers, whose faces are blurred in the video.

One of the officers immediately draws his gun and aims it first toward the ground, then lifts it toward the doorway. “Put your dog away!” one of the officers shouts.

“That’s a big-ass dog,” the officer wearing the camera says to his partner.

“I ain’t getting bit by that, bro,” says the officer seen holding his pistol.

Marseille returns to the door and appears to hold it to keep the dog inside, but does not shut it entirely. She tells the officers the dog is not aggressive.

The dog, wearing a blue Knicks jersey, walks out into the hallway and barks again at the officers, pauses, then takes a step forward and barks again. The officer who had drawn his pistol then fires four times. Both Marseille and the officer’s partner are standing behind the dog.

The other officer appears to also raise a pistol into view when his partner shoots.

Images from the body-worn camera used by the officer who shot the dog appears to show that the other officer carries two guns. During the first interaction with Marseille and her dog, his right hand hovers over what appears to be his service pistol.

After Marseille puts her dog away, he uses his other hand to unholster what appears to be a separate pistol, which he holds in his left hand through the rest of the encounter. During the calm exchange before the dog enters the hallway, the officer points the pistol directly at Marseille.

A video of Marseille sobbing and hugging the body of her two-year-old dog, named Jameson, went viral after Saturday’s shooting. The Los Angeles mayor, Karen Bass, said she had spoken with the police chief, Jim McDonnell, to ensure an investigation into the use of force against the dog.

NBC4 reporter Eric Leonard noted that LAPD had released the video faster than normal, but that the department did not provide raw footage. Instead, the footage had been edited and the officers’ faces blurred, which is unusual.