Ryan Shiner
COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)
A Callaway County deputy shot a dog on Tuesday while serving a warrant near Auxvasse.
The Callaway County Sheriff’s Office announced in a Thursday social media post that Deputy Zach Hubbard shot a dog on Tate Drive near Auxvasse. The sheriff’s office showed body camera footage of the two responding deputies that ends right before a shot is fired. ABC 17 News has requested footage of the full incident.
Callaway County Chief Deputy Curtis Hall said the sheriff’s office decided to release the body camera footage after a social media post from someone caring for the dog gained traction online. Hall claimed the information in that post “was not accurate,” prompting the department to release its own video.
“It spread like wildfire on social media. But, people were starting to message deputies, threaten deputies and post their photos. It was just getting out of hand,” Hall said. “It just became excessive. If you want to criticize the Sheriff’s Office, you want to send us nasty messages, they want to call and cuss us out, we’re used to it. It’s fine, it happens. But finding them on social media, sending things, their email address when they’re not even on duty, threatening them. It just has to stop.”
Hall added that another factor in the decision to release the body camera footage was that the incident was not part of a criminal investigation.
Video footage online shows Hubbard arrive at a residence in his patrol vehicle and is greeted by a growling dog after he steps out of his vehicle.
The sheriff’s office wrote that Hubbard pepper-sprayed the dog. The dog in the video is then seen running off, and the OC spray is seen in Hubbard’s left hand. Footage from Deputy Chad Wimmer’s body camera shows Hubbard using the spray.
Both deputies then walk up to the door of the residence and two other dogs are seen on camera. Another dog – which the sheriff’s office claims was the dog that was sprayed – runs at Hubbard. The deputy is seen pulling out his gun and the video cuts.
Hall said he does not recall receiving any specialized training for handling dog encounters when he attended the police academy 23 years ago. However, he said law enforcement has since placed a greater emphasis on de-escalation techniques.
“We don’t have any specialized training we put deputies through besides the five-month FTO, where they’re with a field training officer,” Hall said. “We deal with dogs on a daily basis. It is very infrequently that we’ve ever had to shoot a dog. Most of the time deputies carry OC spray, not so much for the people that are resisting arrest or are uncooperative; they’re mainly for dogs.”
James Crosby — a canine aggression expert, retired police officer and research associate with Harvard University’s Canine Brain Project — argues many departments do not adequately prepare officers for encounters with dogs, adding that specialized dog encounter training is available to law enforcement agencies through a free program developed with the National Sheriffs’ Association and approved by the U.S. Department of Justice.
“I think the officers deserve all the tools that a department can provide and the best package we have now is that free training that’s available on the National Sheriffs Association website,” Crosby said. “It’s good that they’re getting something that’s better than nothing. But again, for the officers, I think they deserve to have access to the full set of tools that’s going to keep them safe, the public safe and the pets safe.”
In the release, the sheriff’s office says Hubbard believed “the dog posed an immediate threat of injury to his safety.”
The sheriff’s office then wrote that a female resident opened the door and law enforcement explained what happened. The father of a youth who allegedly was taking care of the dog placed a blanket over the dead animal, the sheriff’s office wrote.
The office wrote that deputies were trying to serve an arrest warrant to Michael Smith, who was wanted on suspicion of carjacking, tampering with a vehicle, harassment, fourth-degree assault and second-degree property damage. Charges did not appear on Casenet on Thursday afternoon. The dog allegedly belonged to Smith.
“After confirming the dog had passed, the father of the juvenile respectfully covered the animal with a blanket. Deputies remained at the residence, from a distance, until a [l]ieutenant arrived who was briefed on what had happened. Deputies left the residence at approximately 4:45 PM,” the release says. The sheriff’s office claims it was not releasing “the complete body-worn camera footage at this time because it contains images of a juvenile female who was not fully clothed,” the release says.
“The body cameras were active from the time that they got there until the time they left, 45 minutes,” Hall added. “So let’s just show unedited video so everybody can see the exact same video at the exact same time.”
Law enforcement went back to the residence at 11:20 p.m. and detained Smith, who bonded out of jail on Wednesday. The sheriff’s office told ABC 17 News that Hubbard has been with them since 2021 and Wimmer started last year.
“No deputy comes to work thinking, ‘this is the day that I’m going to shoot a dog’. Both deputies are seasoned deputies. One’s been here for over a year, and he’s had a lot of military experience before coming here,” Hall told ABC 17 News. “The other has been here for five years and they are both great with the public, great with people.”
Hall added that he believes the deputies responded according to their training, explaining that deputies are taught to use OC spray during encounters with aggressive dogs. But once the spray wore off, the deputy was forced to act in self-defense.
“We have sympathy for the owner of the dog and the female that was taking care of the dog. But at the same time, deputies don’t sign up to get bitten on a daily basis by dogs. They have a right to protect themselves,” Hall said.
Crosby — who reviewed the edited body camera videos released by the sheriff’s office — said the deputies initially appeared to follow techniques taught in his training program. However, he said the video cuts off too soon to determine whether the shooting could have been avoided.
“They started on real good footing. First officer gets out, dogs come up to him, he backs off and then he pulls out his pepper spray and puts it in his weak or his non-gun hand and then comes walking forward. The other officer gets out of his vehicle and immediately puts his pepper spray in his hand so they both still have access to their guns,” Crosby said. “The officers seem that they did begin the process of responding exactly like we teach, but then it went off the rails.
“The studies we’ve got show that pepper spray, if it’s deployed right in the dog’s face, is highly effective. Those dogs that came from off camera, those two dogs were facing directly towards him. So I think the rest of the video will help us understand the story.”
Hall does not expect any additional investigation into the deputies’ actions.
“The body camera speaks for itself. I fully backed the deputies and what they did, and ultimately I feel for the family that had their dog shot and killed. But we stand by the deputies and what they did. There is a use of force that will have to go through the proper channels but at this time there will be no further investigation as far as anything related to the deputies and how they handled the situation.”
While Crosby said releasing body camera footage quickly was a positive first step, he said he hopes additional footage will eventually be made public to provide further context.
“I think that releasing the video in a timely manner like this was a good start,” Crosby said. Are they going to follow through? I don’t know. I would really like to see the unredacted video and hear what was going on all the way through the incident.”
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Courtesy: Desert Buzz Cafe
(Courtesy: NTSB)
