BELTSVILLE, Md. — A woman who witnessed a Prince George’s County police officer open fire on a pit bull in Beltsville said the shooting was both dangerous and unnecessary.
The dog was not hurt and was seized by authorities. In the aftermath, an officer is on routine administrative leave while the case is reviewed.
This follows another incident where two other PGPD officers were suspended for shooting a dog inside an occupied Hyattsville apartment Wednesday. A third officer in that incident is on administrative leave pending an investigation.
The Thursday shooting in the 11000 block of Evans Trail Road in Beltsville happened when a pit pull got loose as Prince George’s County police responded to a domestic dispute, according to the department's account of the incident.
Two shots were fired, police said. The dog was not hurt and no bystanders or officers were injured.
But witness Angela Hope Pope complained the shooting was dangerous.
“He's a wonderful dog," she said. "The only thing he was doing is running from the altercation because he was scared."
Pope explained that her friends had been fighting over a phone when the 55-pound dog broke away. She claims two officers pulled guns and tried to contain the dog when it broke away again and a third officer got involved and started shooting.
"That officer had no reason to point her gun at that dog and try to shoot it, or even just shoot in an open apartment complex," Pope said. "She could have put bullet holes to anybody's house, or children!”
Pope said she too was trying to control the dog and was close enough to be hit by a hot ejected shell casing from the officer's pistol. Prince George’s County police say the officer involved fired twice.
"The officer is on routine leave while the incident is documented and investigated as required any time an officer fires a gun," police said.
The Beltsville incident comes after two officers were suspended and a third was put on leave after a dog was shot and tasered inside an occupied Hyattsville apartment Wednesday. In that case, the dog died. The officers were responding to a dog bite complaint.
According to the department’s general orders, officers are authorized and even obligated to use lethal force on animals that are a threat to people. Because deadly force is involved, all animal shootings are investigated and documented just like gunfire involving people, according to the department’s general orders.
In Prince George’s County, in 2019, police shot at dogs eight times, according to police.
In the District of Columbia, the city’s annual use of force report says there were a dozen dog shooting incidents in the District during one recent year. Last year, there were three.
The dog in Thursday's Beltsville incident was not hurt, but ended up seized by authorities because it was a pit bull.
The county has had a ban on unregistered pit bulls, and restrictions on how they are kept since 1997.