User:HudsonBreeze/Hawthorne, California dog shooting incident

The Hawthorne Police dog shooting incident involved an officer attached to the Hawthorne Police Department shot a charging rottweiler on Sunday, June 30, 2013 at 137th Street at Jefferson Avenue in Hawthorne which is about 15 miles southwest of downtown Los Angeles.

Incident
At the time of the shooting, officers were finishing up a SWAT standoff with possible armed robbers when they allege the dog's owner, Leon Rosby, 52, walked his dog too close to the scene and obstructed officers in their duties. When officers approached, Rosby put his dog into his car, but left the windows rolled down.

The officers handcuffed him and the dog first became agitated and then began barking out of one of the car's open windows. The dog jumped out and barked at the officers.

One of the police officers reached toward the dog several times, apparently trying to grab its leash. The dog lunged at him and he fired four shots at the dog, killing it.

Rosby can be heard yelling, "Don't shoot my dog, man. Don't shoot him."

The dog fell to the ground, yelping and writhing in the street. The animal's owner, still handcuffed, cried out and his legs buckled.

Witnesses can be heard crying out in distress after watching the dog's grisly death.

"I never meant my dog to be killed and shot like that," Rosby said Tuesday. "He wasn't just shot. He was executed."

Public reaction
A bystander Gabriel Martinez who captured the entire scene on his smartphone where the owner crying out, bystanders screaming, the dog convulsing on the ground, bleeding. The resulting video has gone viral, with more than 2.1 million views on Tuesday night - just two days after it was posted.

The Hawthorne Police Department has seen a major public backlash, with angry calls, emails and tweets pouring in, along with some threats, authorities said.

Three police officers have been pulled from street duty for their safety in Southern California after a widely circulated cellphone video that had more than 3.7 million views on YouTube by Thursday morning. They drew numerous death threats.

Bloggers attempted to post Hawthorne Police Department public information officer, Lt. Swain's personal information online and mistakenly posted the phone number and address of an unrelated art supply store, Swain's Art Supplies. This caused the store to receive numerous threats.

In addition, the online activist group Anonymous responded by issuing a video threat to the police department. The city website also suffered a DDoS attack, although it is unclear if Anonymous was involved.

Legal actions
Michael Gulden, Rosby's attorney, said his client was targeted because he had a pending lawsuit against the Hawthorne Police Department. Rosby alleged that police beat him without cause.

"We'll be amending the complaint to include another excessive force action as well," Gulden said.