A family has been left heartbroken after their golden retriever was fatally shot by a police officer in Ohio.
Bodycam footage from July 2 revealed Elliott Palmer, of the Lorain Police Department, shooting three-and-a-half-year-old golden retriever Dixie and then leaving the dog dying on the sidewalk, as reported by The New York Post.
Palmer had been patrolling the area when he noticed several dogs off-leash and asked the owner, Tammie Kern, to get them under control according to reports from WKYC. Shortly after, the golden retriever ran up to the officer - and while it did not seem aggressive - it was coming towards the cop when he opened fire.
The incident has sparked outrage from bystanders and on social media, and as a result, Palmer has since been placed on leave while the incident is "under investigation," according to WKYC.
In the horrifying video, the dog tried to get away before her front legs gave out, so she fell in the middle of the street. Dixie then attempted to get herself to safety by dragging her back legs across the ground until she reached the curb, where she helplessly lay on the sidewalk.
"You stupid, f***, you killed my dog," Dixie's owner, Tammie Kern, could be heard telling the officer. "Why did you do it?"
"Get back, OK. Your dog charged me, get back," Palmer responded while Kern screamed: "That dog was harmless!", as she stood next to her dying pet.
The officer then called for backup as more neighbors came out of their homes, demanding to know what happened to the dog.
At one point, Kern can be heard screaming in grief on the ground while another person tries to console her as Dixie lay a few feet away. "She wasn’t even going at you, she was going across the street," she exclaimed."I hope you lose your f***ing job."
Dixie's owner spoke to 3News about her tragic loss and emotionally said: "After she was shot one time in the street, he should have just let it go and let us get the dog and take her where she needed to be treated.
"But he didn't do that. She was crawling - useless, helpless - in the street. He continued shooting her. She was trying to come to safety, and he just kept shooting her three more times after the first time," she added.
Kern reiterated that she wants Palmer terminated from his profession, adding: "He should go to jail. He should rot. I don’t want him to shoot somebody else. He needs to be off the streets. There were innocent bystanders nearby."
Since the tragic shooting, the local community has come forward to demand the officer be fired from the police department.
A MoveOn.org petition and the hashtag #JusticeforDixie have gone viral on social media, with the petition saying: "The dog was not aggressive nor was she doing anything to warrant such a horrendous act of violence. This is not the type of policing our city needs nor wants. We demand answers and resolution and justice for Dixie and her family."
In addition to this, the Lorain Police Department released a statement, confirming that Palmer had "used force" on the dog and said the incident was under investigation.
"While all the facts are not yet known, the investigation has been assigned to the Lorain Police Department’s Office of Professional Standards to conduct a thorough investigation into the circumstances that led to the use of force," the statement read, per The New York Post.
Furthermore, Kern and her family plan on filing a lawsuit against the police department.
