The incident happened at a home on Bellamy Brother Boulevard where a silent alarm had been triggered Friday. The shooting was recorded by the deputy's body camera.
The deputy arrived and, in order to get onto the property, hopped over a gate that had several warning signs about the owner's dogs.
Homeowner Carla Gloger says if the deputy would have opened the gate and drove down the long driveway to the house instead of hopping the fence and walking, the situation might have been prevented. The deputy, though, said the gate was locked.
The walk down the driveway
The body camera rolled as he walked down the driveway and approached the house. That's when two Rottweilers, estimated to be more than 70 pounds each, ran toward him. The deputy can be seen drawing his gun and shooting one of the animals.
FOX 13 is not posting the full video due to its graphic nature. After the deputy shoots the dog, it can be heard yelping in pain. The owner runs out of the house. “You shot my dog,” she yells. “He came right at me, ma'am,” the deputy responds. “I got it on camera. I got it on camera.”
Carla Gloger then demands several times that the deputy “shoot him all the way” while the dog appears to limp around with its injury. After Gloger yells at the deputy several more times to shoot the dog again, he shoots one bullet into the dog's head. A few seconds later, the dog stops moving.
Um, if this were my dog I would NOT tell the officer to kill it. I would have him rush me and my dog - blue lights and sirens running - to the nearest vet to try to save it.
The aftershock
Gloger is haunted by the memory.
"I haven't slept for days. I haven't eaten. It's hard for me to even come out," said Gloger, the dog's owner, who heard the shot and the dog cry. "I freaked out. I was like, 'oh my God, of all people, I would never think a sheriff would trespass, come over the gate, not unlatch it, and come in and just shoot my dog.'"
Gloger said the her gate was unlocked, and the deputy should have done more to try to open the gate and drive in instead of being on foot. She said her dogs are well-trained and would not have attacked the deputy who, she believes, overreacted.
"Dogs are going to be dogs... Nobody's out here and you're sneaking up, they're going to go run and bark. That's what they do. That's normal instinct," Gloger said. "I want my dog back, but that's not going to happen. I want them to pay for my dog, but that's probably not going to happen. But I don't want it to happen to someone else's pet."
Gloger also used her cell phone to record her confrontation with the deputy.
"Why would you enter a gate if you see dogs over there?" Gloger can be heard asking at one point in a four-minute video.
"Because, like I said, I thought your property was being broken into," the deputy answered.
The Pasco Sheriff's response
Sheriff Chris Nocco said the deputy, who is also an Iraq War veteran, will not be disciplined because he did exactly as he was trained to do while responding to an alarm at her home.
Seriously, who cares if he's an Iraq war veteran? It's like comparing apples to oranges.
"We're negligent if we don't go to that house and God forbid something happens to her. It's our duty to go out there and do everything we can to ensure the safety of our citizens," Nocco told FOX 13. "It's an unfortunate situation that these dogs attacked our deputy."
Although I am a BIG supporter of law enforcement, these guys are being jerks. How about apologizing instead of being defensive?
Nocco said the body camera video illustrates just how dangerous a situation this could have been for his deputy.
"Our major evaluated the situation and said we are absolutely justified in what we did out there," the sheriff said.
Gloger has several Rottweilers, some of which are show dogs or service animals. She said her pet that was killed was 18 months old and being trained to be a show dog.
(FOX 13 Tampa Bay, WTVT-TV - April 22, 2015)
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