LAPD releases bodycam footage of officer shooting a Knicks fan’s dog

LOS ANGELES - The Los Angeles Police Department on June 19 released body camera footage of an officer shooting and killing a woman’s pet dog in an incident that has sparked an international outcry and raised questions about police use of force.

The two-year-old golden saint berdoodle, named Jameson, was shot dead by a police officer on June 13 outside the door of an apartment where he and another officer had arrived to investigate reports of a woman screaming, the police department said earlier this week.

It was later found that the woman, Marie Marseille, was celebrating the New York Knicks winning the NBA championship.

The footage, which stitches together video from the body cameras on both officers, shows them approaching an apartment door. They had received a call from a neighbour who heard her repeatedly screaming, “Oh, my God”, for 20 minutes and asked officers to do a wellness check, according to the recording of a 911 call that was included in the video released by police.

In the footage, the two officers stand on either side of the door as they knock and announce that they are from the police department. The time stamp shows that it is almost 9pm.

After a few seconds, a woman who is not identified in the video answers the door and a gray dog, wearing a blue shirt, appears at the doorstep, barking. The officers, whose faces are blurred, ask her to put the dog away as one of them unholsters his handgun.

The dog keeps barking while she apologises. The officers step away from the door as they repeat their request to put the dog away. She closes the door.

While waiting, one officer remarks that the dog is very large. “I ain’t getting bit by that, bro,” the other officer replies, putting his gun back in his holster.

When the woman reopens the door, one officer asks if the dog has been put away.

“He’s not aggressive,” she says. “At all. I apologize.”

An officer says, “He’s, uh, huge, you know what I mean?”

Then the footage shows the dog coming out again. One officer says, “Put him in.”

The dog, barking, walks past the woman out the open door and bolts toward an officer, who draws his gun again and, as he runs backward, shoots four times.

The dog collapses to the floor. The woman screams, “No!”

It was less than a minute after the officers first knocked on the door.

The dog was struck by gunfire and the Los Angeles Department of Animal Services took custody of the deceased dog, Capt. Mike Bland, a police spokesperson, says in the video that features the footage.

Bland added in the video that police would investigate and analyse the episode over the next several months, interview any witnesses and conduct forensic tests if new evidence is found.

Once the investigation is complete, the police chief will forward the findings and make a recommendation to the civilian Board of Police Commissioners, Bland said. The board will then determine whether the officer’s tactics and use of deadly force met police standards.

Mayor Karen Bass of Los Angeles said in a statement on June 19 that the footage was “disturbing and tragic”.

“While the investigation is ongoing, I am very concerned about why shots were fired and Jameson was killed,” she said. “This shooting makes clear that while LAPD provides officers with written guidance on the use of force and pets, this is not enough.”

Bass said that she had directed the police chief and president of the Board of Police Commissioners to examine the police department’s use-of-force policy on dog encounters and to update policies and training related to the use of lethal force.

The LAPD issued a use-of-force policy for hostile dog encounters in 2023. It lists seven tactics and tools officers can use before firing their weapon: voice commands; chemical spray; baton; fire extinguisher; Taser; a beanbag shotgun; and kicking.

• This article originally appeared in The New York Times.