May 11--A south side family is upset after they said an officer with the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department tried to run over their dog and later shot it right in their own front yard.
It all started when Heather White woke up around 6:30 a.m. Friday to the sound of a gunshot right outside her bedroom window.
"We found her underneath that tree dead," said White, blinking back tears.
Her 2-year-old pit bull Skye had been shot in the head.
"He rolled down his window and didn't even get out and shot her from the window," said White.
The dog was shot just below the White's bedroom window.
White said if the officer missed by an inch, he would have shot her 11-month-old baby who was sleeping in his crib just below that window.
"We had no say," said White. "They gave the dog no chance. Nothing. They could have knocked on our door they didn't nothing."
Officers responded to the scene after receiving a complaint that the dog was chasing kids on Bancroft Street.
According to the IMPD police report, the officer "slowed his vehicle dramatically and then attempted to run over... the dog in an attempt to protect the child from harm."
As the officer turned [his car] around, the grey pit bull "began to charge his vehicle."
The officer wrote, because the dog "was aggressive" and he was "in fear for the safety of the area residents not inside of their homes" he fired one round into the pit bull.
Russell Anderson, who lives across the street, said he has never once seen Skye be aggressive.
"She's friendly," said Anderson. "I walk ... I go by their house twice a day they don't ever chase me down the street."
Anderson believes the situation should have been handled much differently.
"It's not right," said Anderson. "They could have put their sirens on and announced there's dogs loose in the neighborhood -- don't come out. That way he could have come out and got his dog."
However, Heather and her family never did get that chance. Now, she's left wondering how she'll tell her kids that they'll never see Skye again.
"He didn't care at all that he had just taken a family dog away from my kids...when my kids are sitting in there crying asking where his dog is," said White.
Copyright 2012 - WXIN-TV, Indianapolis
