Lost dog shot, killed by Ambridge police officer

AMBRIDGE, Pa. — A lost dog was shot and killed by an Ambridge police officer Friday, just hours after being found by a good Samaritan.

“I’m mortified. I just can’t the vision out of my head,” said a woman who works near the police station and saw the encounter unfold. She spoke to 11 News anonymously.

“I just can’t even fathom what I saw today. There’s no words to describe it. I’m going to see that probably for the rest of my life,” the witness said.

Police had the female adult Mastiff after Jane Stadnik found the dog earlier in the day while on a walk through her neighborhood.

“This dog runs across in front of us with a leash dragging behind it,” Stadnik said.

She and her husband spent over an hour trying to find the dog’s owner.

When they couldn’t, they called Ambridge police.

An officer came and picked up the dog and the department made a post on Facebook writing, “If anyone knows who owns this pleasant pup please call the Ambridge Police Dept immediately.”

In a statement to 11 News, Ambridge Police Chief John DeLuca said, in part, “While trying to get the dog out of the kennel it became aggressive towards an officer and tried to bite him in the hand. When the officer went to back up the dog escaped out of the kennel biting the officer in the knee. The officers then tried to catch the dog with a dog pole and in the process, the dog turned and lunged towards an officer. At that time the officer discharged his weapon striking the dog.”

“There was just blood everywhere. He had his head in his hands and he said, ‘She came after me,” and I went, ‘What did you do?’ I was just mortified,” the witness said.

Police then covered the dog, but according to witnesses, the dog was not dead and eventually had to be shot again to be put down.

“At one point I saw the boards flop up because she sat back up, so she was not dead, so she laid there and suffered for a good half an hour, 40 minutes,” the witness said.

Ambridge police said an IT specialist will be going through their video surveillance footage on Monday to see if the incident was caught on camera.

If the dog did belong to someone, police would like to owner to reach out to them.

On Tuesday, the Ambridge Police Department told Channel 11 they have obtained video evidence, witness statements and officers’ reports that were directly involved in the incident.

The information obtained will be turned over to the Beaver County District Attorney’s Office for investigation.

The department said there will be no further comments or statements released while the district attorney’s office investigates.

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