A dog named Diamond survived being shot in the face by an Aliquippa police officer, and the people who tracked him say the shooting never should have happened. Officer Paul Woods fired after Diamond and other dogs killed chickens, and activists have since threatened legal action against the city. Questions about what the body-camera video actually shows are now at the center of the dispute.
According to WPXI, Woods retrieved his rifle, walked to where he had the dogs in his line of sight and shot one of them in the face. The dogs had killed one chicken and five additional birds. Diamond survived, but only after spending months on the run after escaping his home before the chicken incident, then wandering the woods injured for several weeks before being found.
Susan Niedergal, an administrator with Beaver County Lost Pets, tracked Diamond the entire time he was missing. She said the dogs hunted for food while starving and were otherwise not aggressive. In her view, police should not shoot a dog merely because it is trying to survive.
Police Report and Body Camera Tell Different Stories
The police report states that the dog lunged at Woods, the station's report notes. Niedergal says body-camera video shows Woods exited his vehicle, moved to its front and fired within two seconds. She said Woods should have tried to corral the dogs before opening fire.
The footage itself does not settle the question. The shooting is obscured by Woods' hands and rifle, and it's not clear whether Diamond lunged at the officer or prepared to. Niedergal and Diamond's new owners spent the past year seeking release of that footage and urging the department to reinforce a shoot-second approach.
Rachel Byrge, Diamond's new owner, said a lost dog should not be shot and subjected to trauma and pain. She also said she did not want negative outcomes to befall Woods or the Aliquippa police department. Roughly nine months after the shooting, Diamond showed no signs of aggression toward humans.
Silence From City Hall
Animal rights activists have called the shooting an unnecessary use of force and threatened legal action against the City of Aliquippa. Neither Woods nor Aliquippa police or city leadership responded to WPXI's interview request.
The city also ignored a Right to Know request asking for the department's use-of-force policy, so what rules Aliquippa officers actually follow remains unverified. Officers from other agencies told the station they would shoot a dog attacking something or threatening a person's safety, but would otherwise try to avoid lethal force.
What the Model Rules and State Law Say
One yardstick is the 2022 model policy from the Allegheny County District Attorney's Office. It lets officers use a firearm on a dangerous animal in self-defense or defense of another person, or to end the suffering of a critically injured animal when other methods are impractical. It also says that whenever possible, the owner should be contacted and permission obtained. The document describes itself as a sample for agencies to tailor, and nothing in the dossier shows Aliquippa adopted it.
Pennsylvania law is more permissive in one respect. Under the Pennsylvania General Assembly's dog law, any person may kill a dog they see in the act of pursuing, wounding or killing a domestic animal, with no liability for the killing.
Not the First Dog Shot in Aliquippa
The incident echoes a 2012 case in which, according to Officer.com, an owner said an officer shot her dog without provocation while police were responding to a call for smoke. She said the officer fired three shots, hitting the dog once in the jaw. Then-Chief Andre Davis said the officer had to treat it as a dangerous dog because it wasn't contained.
Elsewhere in Pennsylvania, the facts looked different this summer. PennLive reported that Allentown police said a loose dog bit three people before it charged toward an officer, who fatally shot it on Aug. 12.
The ASPCA says it receives regular reports of dogs shot, often fatally, by police, and that police rarely receive training to rapidly assess a dog's danger. The group believes most such shootings are avoidable.
