Inside tiny 900-person town torn apart by senseless killing of adorable blind and deaf Shih Tzu 'Teddy' - as owner files $1M lawsuit, mayor resigns and residents call for two-man police team to be shut down

Daily Mail UK ^ | June 1, 2024 | Rachel Bowman

[Morgana]

A small Missouri town is enraged over the senseless killing of a small dog by a police officer that led the mayor to resign amid growing calls to shut down the police department.

Horrifying bodycam footage captured the moment Teddy, a five-year-old, 13-pound dog, was tragically gunned down by police officer Myron Woodson, in Sturgeon on May 19.

Kevin Abrahamson stepped down as mayor after Teddy's owner, Nicholas Hunter, filed a $1million lawsuit against the city and officer Woodson alleging that his Fourteenth Amendment rights were violated.

During a regularly scheduled city aldermen meeting on Tuesday, dozens of Sturgeon residents came out to show their support for Teddy, reported The Washington Post.

'This is your town, if you don't speak up now, you might not ever get anything to change,' said a woman holding a 'Justice for Teddy.'

[gopno1]

The officer in question was contracted to Sturgeon by the town eight miles down the road and he covered there when he wasn’t working here (and I say “here” because he’s actually a full-time officer in the town I live in and as a matter of fact, he drove down my street about an hour ago). Sturgeon can’t technically “fire” him, but I’m sure they can get out of the contract with him somehow. I’d be stunned if he ever worked there again.

[blueplum]

I watched the video and I’d say it was senseless - and sad, which is why I didn’t post it myself. The call came in from the owner for help finding a lost dog that was deaf and blind. That info was not taken into consideration. PO said he though the dog was abandoned, had rabies and didn’t want to get bitten. The PO was trying to noose the dog by asking it to put its head in a catcher’s loop, again, ignoring that the dog was deaf and blind. Any bystander observing the dog would see there was no rabid behavior, just a little ball of fur wandering around playfully with his nose in the air trying to sniff out his owner. When the dog was located, the dogcatcher/PO didn’t call back that owner. (not that I would expect that in a large town, but this was a 900 person, one horse town). TeddyDog should have been treated the same way a blind and deaf child would have been or a blind kitten trapped up a tree - phone the reporting parent - because to some, disabled pets are their child. Fire the officer and cough up a settlement.

[dragnet2]

I wouldn’t want that guy anywhere near me.

[gopno1]

I try to avoid him, like as in not going 16 in a 15, etc...lol. He actually called me a few weeks ago about throwing trash in my own office dumpster. It was a short conversation.

[drSteve78]

Riiiight. It was a neighborhood dog. For years. Not a stray that no one didn’t know.

But whatever it takes to make everyone feel that this was a normal response.

Could have been a stray child, deaf, riding a bike in circles, that wasn’t listening to Police officer
I’m generally supportive of law enforcement. If he thought the dog was rabid, you use a snare and capture the dog to diagnose rabies by pathology on an intact brain, so we are to assume the officer knew that, rendered the animal with a gut/chest shot, and then put gloves on to collect the carcass for necropsy.

Yeah, that didn’t happen. He killed a neighborhood pet.