Davenport Police Chief Shoots Dog

DAVENPORT | City officials will ask the Polk County Sheriff’s Office to investigate the shooting of a pet dog by Police Chief Charles Clements early this month to determine whether it was justified and followed proper procedures.

“Whenever there is a discharge of an officer’s firearm, an outside agency investigates,” City Attorney Kirk Warren told the members of the City Council Monday.

No such investigation has taken place in the case of the shooting of Tyson, Bruce Rushworth’s 2-year-old boxer by the Clements late in the afternoon of Nov. 8 outside Rushworth’s home.

The dog died within hours of the shooting.

Mayor Pete Rust instructed Interim City Manager Amy Arrington to ask the Sheriff’s Officer to look into the shooting.

Rushworth and a half dozen of his neighbors showed up that Monday’s council meeting to complain about the shooting and say that Clements shot a friendly, non-aggressive dog unnecessarily.

“I was appalled when a personal pet was shot by the chief of police,” said Beth Coker, whose home is behind Rushworth’s. “It’s not right that a person can come home from work and find their dog dead.”

According to the police report written by Officer Evelyn Velasquez, she had gone to Rushworth’s Market Street home in response to a report of three loose dogs in the area.

She was in the yard when all three dogs came toward her, Tyson being the most aggressive.

“The big brown boxer was charging towards me. I took out my Tazer and baton and motion to get away. I had a chance to get in my car and I notified dispatch to call (Polk County Sheriff’s Office) Animal Control,” she wrote.

Clements arrived before Animal Control.

In his report, he said that, once the boxer was pointed out to him by Velasquez, the dog growled at him and charged him.

Clements fired when the dog got within 7 feet, his bullet striking Tyson in the face and exiting from the back of his head.

“It got aggressive,” Clements said in recounting the event Monday. “It chased my officer into her car and came at me. When it got within 6 or 7 feet it was inside my safety zone and I had to shoot it.”

Rushworth, however, said Tyson was still a puppy and wasn’t an aggressive animal, just a friendly one.

“If they’d have waited until Animal Control got there, they would have known that,” he said.

Coker said, when the shooting took place, a 5-year-old neighbor girl was outside playing with her own dog and accused Clements of putting her in danger.

“That bullet could have gone anywhere,” she said.

Coker said she and her neighbors have complained for months about a pack of stray dogs in the neighborhood, but Animal Control has done nothing about them.

It’s ironic, she said, that the one time the Police Department gets involved, a pet is killed while no action is taken to deal with the strays that threaten the neighborhood.

City Council member Brynn Summerlin said he saw two issues that needed to be treated separately even though they are related.

One is the shooting of Tyson and the other is the procedure for dealing with the strays.

Rust then asked Arrington to get the Sheriff’s Office to investigate the shooting, but said he wasn’t sure how to deal with the other issue.

“My concern is the procedural matters,” he said. “What I’m looking for is a written procedure.”

Warren pointed out that the city has no ordinance for dealing with problem animals but relies on the county Animal Control and county statutes.