Update: Click here for Thursday’s full story.
—
Hartford — The Vermont Attorney General’s Office has decided not to file criminal charges against an off-duty Hartford police officer who shot a dog to death at a dog park in June, saying he acted reasonably.
(Continue reading after the report.)
AG decision on Hartford dog shooting by Valley News on Scribd
The decision not to charge Logan Scelza in relation to the June 25 incident was announced in a two-page report today.
After trying to break up a fight involving one of his two huskies and a pit bull at the Watson Upper Valley Dog Park along Route 14 and the White River, Scelza fired three “warning shots” into the ground before shooting the pit bull once in the face and three times in the chest, according to authorities. Scelza left the park with his huskies, taking one of them to the veterinarian, and the pit bull died at the scene.
The Attorney General’s report cited a Vermont law which allows a person to “kill a domestic pet such as a dog that is attacking another animal” when it’s necessary to prevent injury to the animal being attacked.
The report said Scelza was “reasonable in his belief” that killing the pit bull, named Diesel, was “reasonably necessary to prevent injury to his dog.”
“At all times Scelza fired his weapon, there was no one in front of him or in his general vicintiy,” the Attorney General’s report also stated.
—
Posted at 12:25 p.m. Find a full report in Thurdsay’s Valley News.