Covington Police Chief speaks after officer tases dog on video

COVINGTON, Tenn. — Body cam video released by the Covington Police Department shows the moments before an officer tased a dog.

The officer is seen looking at a group of barking dogs from a front porch.

The tasing itself was caught on video by the dog owner’s doorbell camera and shared on social media.

The Covington Police Chief said the officer was justified in using deadly force against four dogs reported running loose over the weekend and praised him for using less-than-lethal methods instead of just shooting them.

The owner’s doorbell footage shows the dog scratching at the door to its home before an animal control officer tries to catch it in a noose and a police officer deploys the taser. The dog is seen tumbling to the ground before the officer cuts the power.

“It makes me sick,” Holly Johnson, the dog owner said. “Sick to my stomach that anyone could do that to my baby. Like, that’s my child.”

Johnson said the dog in the video is her 11-month-old German Shepherd, Raksha.

She said she and her fiance were at work when the dogs got out through a hole in the fence.

She feels a taser was too much.

“Animal control is not given teasers for a reason, because they do not need to harm dogs like that,” she said.

FOX13′s Jack Bilyeu asked Covington Police Chief Donna Turner what typically happens when an officer deals with an aggressive dog.

“I don’t know of any situations where we have had to tase a dog here,” she said.

Turner said animal control and police officers chased the dogs around for 45 minutes before using the taser.

“I think they showed a lot of restraint in using less lethal force,” she said. “We had to solve a problem, that we had vicious dogs.”

Turner said the officer involved will not be reprimanded, but Johnsons said a situation like this should never happen again.

“I do believe they all should get some kind of citation, ticket or something,” she said. “Because it’s not cool. They need to have it on their record.”