The mayor of Sturgeon, Missouri, has resigned following public outrage after a police officer fatally shot a man's missing blind and deaf dog.
On Saturday (May 25), Kevin Abrahamson stepped down as mayor as backlash continued to grow against the Sturgeon Police Department.
As previously reported, footage showed the moment officer Myron Woodson encountered a missing 13-pound dog before shooting it dead - later claiming that he feared for his safety.
The footage, obtained by ABC17, showed the officer attempting to capture the missing dog with a catch pole for approximately four minutes after responding to a Dog At Large call earlier this month.
The pup - a five-year-old white Shih Tzu mix named Teddy - had escaped from his owner's home and was spotted wandering around in a neighbor’s yard just one block away.
However, after failing to secure the dog on the catch pole, the officer pulled out his gun and shot Teddy dead. He then placed the dog's body in a box and loaded him in the trunk of his vehicle, before being confronted by the dog's owner.
The incredible distressing and upsetting footage can be seen below:
Teddy's owner arrived on the scene after being informed that his pup was missing following a post on a community Facebook page.
However, as Hunter was making the 25-minute drive home, he received a second call from a friend telling him that Teddy had been shot dead.
During their conversation, the cop defends his actions, arguing that the police ordered a "no contact" description. Woodson also tried to explain that he didn't know if Teddy was sick.
When Hunter sarcastically asks if the cop felt he was putting Teddy "out of his misery", the officer responds: "What else am I supposed to do?"
As Hunter explains "my dog is completely blind and completely deaf", the officer responds: "How am I supposed to know the dog's condition?"
"I'm sorry it happened to you and I'm sorry I had to do it," the cop adds.
Hunter told The Post that he was later slapped with a Dog At Large citation.
In a statement from the SPD on Monday, officials claims that the officer "noticed the dog was behaving strangely" and displaying signs of "what the officer percieved to be rabid behavior".
The statement adds that the officer "feared being bitten and infected with rabies" so fatally gunned down the dog.
The statement adds that Teddy's "lack of collar" attributed to the officer's decision.
A second statement from the department released days later fails to make any mention of rabies, but emphasized that the "officer acted within his authority based on the information available to him at the time to protect against possible injury to citizens from what appeared to be an injured, sick, and abandoned dog.”
Hunter told the Post: “If you watch the video, the dog is very playful and happy and kind of turned his head when he noticed somebody’s there, looking for somebody to touch him as he’s always done.
“His demeanor in the whole video is non-aggressive. Never brandishes his teeth, never barks or growls or makes any attempt to bite … Zero aggression, which I expect with Teddy, that’s how he’s always been.”
After the footage and story went viral on social media, more than 48,000 people signed an online Change.org petition, with the goal "to help bring justice and hopefully remove Mr.Woodson from service in both cities of Sturgeon and Hallsville".
Following Abrahamson's resignation, Mayor pro-tem, Seth Truesdell, will temporarily take over the role until the vacancy is filled, per KOMU 8.
Truesdell has also condemned the officers' actions in a Facebook post on the City of Sturgeon page, writing: "The actions of the Officer involved are not the values and beliefs of the residents of Sturgeon or the board of Alderman.
"Currently I have made calls to the Boone County Sheriff to meet and discuss an investigation."
KOMU 8 also reports that Hunter has filed a federal lawsuit against the officer and the city, claiming a violation of the Fourth Amendment.
A copy of the complaint can be seen here.
The lawsuit names Officer Myron Woodson and the city of Sturgeon as defendants, and claims that Teddy was not a threat, adding that the officer should have been able to capture him using non-lethal methods.
Meanwhile, the SPD has stated in response to the tragedy: "In order to better equip officers for future animal at large call outs, the City will be sending all officers to Boone County Animal Control for training and education, in hopes that this unfortunate situation does not occur again."
