August 10, 2012 11:23 pm
Andrew Carr
The Sentinel - A North Middleton man feels police mishandled a situation after his dog was shot and killed on Wednesday.
Quinton Stackfield, who lives on Sterrets Gap Avenue in North Middleton Township, said police never informed him that his dog had been shot prior to being put down by police Wednesday.
According to a police report provided by North Middleton Police, the incident occurred at 1 p.m. in the 100 block of Walton Avenue. Officers were dispatched to an incident involving a dog that had attacked a person and his beagle mix, according to the report.
Stackfield reports that he had let his children’s dog, a yellow lab named Charlie, out into the yard to go to the bathroom.
“I let him out to use the bathroom and left my fiancee and the kids at the house, and then I get a call 15 minutes later saying, ‘The cops are here, they shot the dog,’” he said.
According to police, when they arrived on the scene, they had found that the dog had attacked a neighbor, Constable James Brown, and he had no choice but to shoot the animal.
Police say Stackfield’s dog charged through a chain link fence into the neighboring yard and attacked the other dog, biting it several times causing severe injury. At some point, the dog turned on and charged the neighbor, who then shot the dog.
The report then states that “the dog suffered grave injury and had to be destroyed to relieve further pain and suffering.”
Stackfield, however, feels officers mishandled the situation, since the dog was still alive, and said he was not a vicious dog.
“I get to the house, and the cop says to come talk to him and tells me the story that my dog was outside and the neighbor was walking their beagle,” he said. “My dog somehow got under the fence and bit their beagle. The guy ended up shooting my dog because it had bit his beagle. He only shot the dog enough to wound him, then the guy called the cops.”
Stackfield said he was never notified that his pet was lying in his neighbor’s yard with a bullet hole.
“They didn’t come over to my house or say anything about him shooting my dog,” Stackfield said. “He called the North Middleton cops and the North Middleton cops came and shot the dog in the head and then came and told me. The way the cop made it sound, the dog was wounded, I could have maybe had him fixed or something. The neighbor never even came to apologize to me. He knows it’s my kids dog. It just sounds like animal cruelty that first off the neighbor would shoot it, then the cop would come and shoot it. I just think it was handled completely wrong.”
Stackfield then said he was informed by police that he had to go dispose of the animal, which he then took to the Humane Society to have cremated.
He said his family has lived next to the neighbors for years and that this situation “caught me off guard.”
“I tried to tell the kids but they are young and don’t really understand,” he said. “It is a pretty residential area, I was thinking, ‘Man, what if my kids had been outside and this guy starts shooting the dog.’”
Because charges are pending and the incident is currently under investigation, Brown declined to comment beyond describing it as a sad, unfortunate incident.
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