Chase, a puppy, was shot and killed by Sparta, Missouri Police Chief Andrew Spencer. Photo courtesy of KSPR.
Summary: The Missouri Police Chief who bizarrely trapped and shot a family’s lost puppy resigned this week. In his report, he implied he was basically too lazy to take care of the missing pet properly.
What kind of coward kills someone’s lost family dog? Let alone their puppy? Sadly for one family in Missouri, they learned it was the man assigned to protect and serve their town.
In November, Elizabeth Womack of Sparta, MO lost her gray lab-pitbull mix, Chase, when he escaped from her yard. She searched all over for him, contacting a shelter and the police.
The dog was found by police chief, Andrew Spencer, who used a catcher pole to put Chase into a cage. However, instead of sending him to the vet or to the pound, he took the caged dog to a police gun range and shot him because he was too lazy to find its owner. Spencer wrote in his report that he was going to take the dog to a shelter to be “destroyed” but then he got a more important call for a car accident. Nor wanting to deal with the dog anymore, he decided to just get rid of it.
Spencer reported that he planned to go to the “cheapest vet to destroy the dog at the cost of the city…. Due to the higher priority call and the imminent destruction of the dog, I decided it was best to destroy the dog and respond to the accident.”
Spencer later said that Chase was a menace to the neighborhood where he found him. He said he did not believe the dog bit anyone, but that it was charging at people.
Even if that was true, it seemed odd that the dog was shot in a cage, thus neutralizing the idea of a threat.
Womack said that Chase was peaceful, friendly, and great with her family. She said that she attempted to contact the police multiple times and was continuously lied to about what had happened. Finally, she was told Spencer killed and buried her dog and that she could pick up the body.
On Facebook, Womack wrote, “So we call and call and call trying to get a hold of chief Spencer again. To pick up our dog. Finally, 5 days later, chief Spencer contacted us saying he dug him up and left him at the police station. We picked him up that night after work. He was wrapped in a garbage bag, no traces of dirt on him or the trash bag anywhere. We got the police report. It never showed who he supposedly bit. So we took our fur baby home after searching for him for a week and laid him to rest.”
Because of her Facebook post, Womack’s story caught attention online, and angry animal lovers contacted the Sparta Police Department seeking justice. This week, Spencer resigned from his position as police chief.
Source: http://www.kspr.com/news/local/story-of-chase-the-dog-sparks-outrage-in-sparta/21051620_36620792