Bodycam shows Keyport cop did nothing wrong in shooting dog (Opinion)

It turns out the public not only unfairly judges police officers when it comes to shootings. It even does it when the shooting victim is just a dog.

When it was announced by the Monmouth County Prosecutor's Office that a Keyport law enforcement officer responding to an emergency call about an aggressive dog shot the animal, the story was pretty straightforward.

Authorities said a call came in about a woman and her own dog being cornered by a loose, aggressive dog. They said responding officers had the dog charge one of them and that officer fired his gun at the animal to protect himself, hitting it in the shoulder. The dog was treated and survived.

Wouldn't you know the owner of the dog said this was nonsense? That her dog happily "pranced" towards the officer and for no reason he opened fire. She wasn't there of course but claimed she had it on video from a neighbor's Ring doorbell camera. They didn't make that video public right away.

But you know who did make a video public first? The Monmouth County Prosecutor's Office. The officer's bodycam video was released Tuesday and it shows exactly what the police first reported.

It's amazing how many people called New Jersey 101.5, both into our show as well as Steve Trevelise's show, and swore the officer did something wrong, had no reason to shoot the dog, and basically insinuated that the police were lying.

Listeners who said they witnessed the whole thing claimed the police called the dog by name to come to them and when it did, it trotted happily over to the officer who then shot it for no reason.

Riiiight.

Has it become this acceptable in the past several years to outright lie just because certain politicians formed a cult following around it? Get a grip, people.

The officer is never heard calling the dog by name that I can tell. There is a very brief audio drop out, which happens regularly with bodycams. But it doesn’t appear they were calling to the dog in those seconds because it seems they’re not even seeing where the animal is.

In fact, when the dog finally comes charging full speed out of a blind spot and heads straight at the officer who had to pull the trigger, this animal was in no way looking playful. Take a look at the video and you'll know what I mean.

You'll see it all unfold around the one-minute mark. The bodycam video is from the officer who shot, and you can easily tell when that dog came charging the officer takes several steps backward and only shoots once the dog is almost on him. The demeanor of the dog was aggressive, menacing, growling and determined. There were people lying about this case but it wasn't the police.

Just after the dog was shot one of the other Keyport officers said to console the cop who fired his weapon, "Well you had no choice there."

Indeed, he did not.

But the owner of the dog did. Alexyss Ferrara could have chosen to not label this as animal cruelty. She could have chosen to not spread the narrative that this dog "came prancing over all happy" and they shot her American Bully for no reason. But no. She and several other people chose to give some "alternative facts" on the matter that are in no way backed up by the bodycam evidence.

Do we have a parallel universe going on here? One in which that dog named Blaze was happy as pie and not charging and growling?

Let's finally see that Nest cam video now and find out. But pardon me if I’m rational enough to recognize the police bodycam, complete with sound, shows a far better perspective of what really happened.

I know, I know, being rational is sooo 2014.

Opinions expressed in the post above are those of New Jersey 101.5 talk show host Jeff Deminski only.

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