Cleburne officer cleared in fatal shooting of pit bull

A review has cleared a Cleburne officer in the videotaped fatal shooting of a pit bull during a call about aggressive dogs.

Cleburne Mayor Scott Cain announced Saturday that the independent investigation, paid for by the city, found that the officer was justified.

Some residents had protested the dog’s killing Aug. 10.

It happened after a dog named Maximus, owned by resident Amanda Henderson, and other dogs got out of Henderson’s back yard.

In his report, the officer wrote that he responded to a 911 call from a woman who said she was “trapped in her car by several pit bulls that surrounded the car.” The caller said an elderly woman and a baby were in the car with her.

The officer wrote that when he arrived at the 1500 block of Lindsey Street, one dog had been secured. But a male pit bull came within 20 feet of him and started growling. He wrote that a female dog appeared to be nervous and that he made kissing noises to calm the animals.

“I was standing outside the ditch and [the dog] was in the ditch,” the officer wrote. “I raised my duty weapon to the ready position pointed at the growling dog’s head. As soon as I lifted my pistol, the dog began coming up the hill, continuing to growl and display its teeth. The other dog began backing away.

I fired three shots at it. It rolled back into the ditch and died.”

The officer has been on paid leave since Oct. 17 when Henderson posted videos of the shooting on Facebook. She got the video, taken by the officer’s collar camera, by making a public information request.

On the day Henderson posted the video, the city’s website, email and 911 emergency system were targeted by hackers.

Cain said the city’s information and technology department employees logged more than 120 hours pinpointing and stopping the attacks.

In mid-December, Cleburne police hosted a training seminar on how officers can use pepper spray or a baton to subdue aggressive dogs.

The Combined Law Enforcement Associations of Texas chose Cleburne for the training because of the attention over the pit bull incident, said Charley Wilkison, executive director.

“Things are changing. The training didn’t keep abreast of the officers’ needs,” said Wilkison. “Officers are trained to deal with aggression in people, and when it came to dealing with canines, there has been very little training for the officers.”

Wilkison said that although the state doesn’t mandate training on handling aggressive dogs, CLEAT was paying for eight sessions.

“We came to a place where the issue collides with the officers trying to do their jobs. We can’t fix the past, but we can fix the future,” he said.

Officers from Cleburne, Haltom City and other cities learned nonlethal techniques from Jim Osorio, an instructor from Arlington-based Canine Encounters for Law Enforcement Training.

“We want them to know that there are options that are less lethal; we are not training officers to shoot dogs,” Osorio said in an interview.

Fort Worth began requiring dog training for police after an officer who went to the wrong home shot a border collie in 2012.

Staff writer Patrick M. Walker contributed to this report, which includes material from The Associated Press and the Star-Telegram archives.

This story was originally published December 20, 2014 at 5:45 PM with the headline "Cleburne officer cleared in fatal shooting of pit bull."