Long Beach cop shoots dog

BazooThe official version, put out by the LBPD and printed Thursday in the Press-Telegram, is that the dog charged at a detective, who shot in self defense. The dog's owner, Jennie Ullrich, and her boyfriend say on the Beep Blog that it wasn't that way at all. Their account is that she was playing fetch with Bazoo in Drake Park about 6 a.m. and the dog had just scooped up a tennis ball when the officer appeared from behind a car. Ullrich says the dog, ball in her mouth, stopped and looked at the officer, who pulled his gun and fired. While Ullrich screamed at him to stop, she says the officer told her to stay back and shot her dog again. That was traumatic enough, but if her story is true, what happened next is worse. Ullrich and her boyfriend say that they were not allowed to get help for the dog for an hour, that the watch commander who finally arrived "was aggressive, confrontational, and insistent that the dog attacked his Officer," that the homicide detectives who finally questioned Ullrich started out by reading her Miranda rights, and that LBPD still won't divulge the name of the officer. But they did give her something—a citation for letting her dog run off leash.

The dog lived, by the way. But they are pissed, of course, and want to know why the Press-Telegram didn't go beyond the terse police version. (Via blogging.la)


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