NORTHWEST MIAMI-DADE, Fla. (WSVN) — A South Florida family is demanding answers after, they said, Miami-Dade Police detectives came unannounced and fatally shot their dog in front of their children.
A photo captures Northwest Miami-Dade resident Liznett Vila cradling her dying pet as he lay bleeding all over her porch and arms, Monday morning. "I woke up to a gunshot, so I came out, my kids are outside … I see my porch, which looks a little washed off, full of blood and cops outside," she said.
Vila said the detectives were there looking for a man her family insists they don’t know. "My mother-in-law said they showed her a picture of a colored male that apparently was tracked down to this address," she said. "They didn’t even have a warrant."
As children played in the front yard, Vila said, their grandmother tried to warn police. "She told them, ‘There’s a dog inside. Step out so I can lock him up,’ and they just proceeded in," she said. "That’s when the dog came in around this way and growled at the cops, and they decided to pull their guns out and shoot him."
That’s when Vila saw Charlie, her 2-year-old adopted American bulldog, shot in the neck. "I talked to the cop, I’m like, ‘You shot my dog’. He’s like, ‘No, we’re trying to scare him.’ I’m like, ‘But there’s blood all over my porch.’ He’s like, ‘Oh, I must have hit him,’" she said.
Vila raced Charlie to the vet to try and save him as, she said, her husband shot cellphone video of different Miami-Dade officers searching their yard for bullets. "I guess the person they were looking for was irrelevant, ’cause they left. They called other cops that came in to do the investigation," she said.
Charlie did not survive the gunshot, and his owners said they have no answers from police on who they were looking for and why.
Miami-Dade Police told 7News they were conducting some kind of investigation on the Vilas; property, but did not give further details. Police said something occurred to cause one of their officers to fire his weapon.
The investigation into Charlie’s shooting is being handled by Miami-Dade Police’s Professional Compliance Bureau.