She told the police officer to “shoot the dog”. Now she’s getting death threats. Jessica Dilallo went live on Facebook recently when she saw a dog aggressively trying to rip the bumper off her new car. Her interaction with police in Tennessee has since gone viral.
Dilallo is heard in the video pleading with Dalton Police Lt. Matthew Locke to shoot the dog, or throw a rock at him as the dog chews down on her new car’s bumper. Lt. Locke refuses because the Pit Bull isn’t behaving aggressively towards a person, and tells her an animal control officer is “on the way”.
Another officer in the video notes that the dog is going after two cats hiding under the hood of the vehicle.
“And so when he finally gets to whatever he’s going to we get to watch him destroy that as well? The cat gets to die, too?” Dilallo asks incredulously.
Eventually, animal control did arrive and secured the dog and brought him to animal control where his owner later picked him up.
Soon after, the video went viral and Dilallo said she received death threats for telling the officers to shoot the dog attacking her car.
Dilallo says she was scared and just wanted the dog to stop. “He didn’t do anything to me, but I couldn’t get him off the car,” said Dilallo. She was on the phone during the incident and recorded the incident to show the dog’s owner and for insurance purposes.
“I’m like the most hated person right now because I said I wanted to shoot the dog, but I still stand by that,” she told WRCB. “We weren’t sure if it was rabid, but it was foaming at the mouth, there was blood everywhere.”
However, the officer defends his choice to not harm the dog.
“If we just run the dog off, pepper spray it or taze it, it may turn on us and then we would be forced to kill it because it would be attacking one of us,” Lt. Locke said. “My whole goal was to try to keep it contained, catch it and identify the owner and ultimately that’s what we did.”
Watch the viral video below.
The dog’s owner, Ben Bonds spoke with WRCB and said he was relieved to get his dog, Red, back safely and told the news station that this was the first time Red got loose. Red has a fenced pen, but said he’ll make sure Red doesn’t escape again.
“He is a good dog. He’s not no mean dog. He’s just a pup,” said Bonds. The news station reports that he has agreed to pay Dilallo for damages to her car and has been warned to keep his dog contained.
The Whitfield County Sheriff’s Office that overseas animal control advises people not to shoot a dog if he/she is only attacking property.
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