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BEAUMONT: Officers responding to an alarm enter the wrong yard and meet a Rottweiler.
By JENNIFER BOWLES / The Press-Enterprise
Peter Vanderford never got a chance to say good-bye to his beloved 5-year-old Rottweiler named Austin.
By the time he got home Friday, Austin's body had been carted away after Beaumont police officers shot and killed him while responding to a panic alarm at the wrong house.
"It's just tragic," Vanderford said Saturday. "It's sad that the officers just assumed everything."
Lt. John Acosta said an investigation is ongoing. He said the responding police officers were in the wrong place on the 1100 block of Hendrick Court when they fired five rounds at the dog. He said the department intends to make things right with Vanderford.
"To some people it's like family, it's like their kid," he said, "and we have to look at it that way."
The shooting took place Friday about 2 p.m., when a child in the house next door to Vanderford's mistakenly set off a silent panic alarm in the purse of the child's mother, Acosta said.
A responding officer went to Vanderford's house, thinking he heard that address over the radio instead of Vanderford's neighbor, Acosta said.
The two officers saw a garage door open in the back yard and an alarm placard on the house and assumed they had the right house, Acosta said. When they went around the back of the house, the dog came out of the garage and was 5 feet away when the first officer fired his weapon.
"Having no time to react, he didn't have time to retrieve the pepper spray, he felt the dog was rather large and too close, the officers reacted with their firearms," he said.
Still believing they were at the right house, Acosta said, the officers conducted a search inside the house and after finding no suspects went outside and realized the house they were supposed to be at was next door.
Vanderford said he got a call from police about the shooting while working in Covina.
"They went through my whole house, searched through it and left the front door open," Vanderford said, adding that one of his two indoor cats got outside. "It kind of felt like they invaded my house."
By JENNIFER BOWLES / The Press-Enterprise
Peter Vanderford never got a chance to say good-bye to his beloved 5-year-old Rottweiler named Austin.
By the time he got home Friday, Austin's body had been carted away after Beaumont police officers shot and killed him while responding to a panic alarm at the wrong house.
"It's just tragic," Vanderford said Saturday. "It's sad that the officers just assumed everything."
Lt. John Acosta said an investigation is ongoing. He said the responding police officers were in the wrong place on the 1100 block of Hendrick Court when they fired five rounds at the dog. He said the department intends to make things right with Vanderford.
"To some people it's like family, it's like their kid," he said, "and we have to look at it that way."
The shooting took place Friday about 2 p.m., when a child in the house next door to Vanderford's mistakenly set off a silent panic alarm in the purse of the child's mother, Acosta said.
A responding officer went to Vanderford's house, thinking he heard that address over the radio instead of Vanderford's neighbor, Acosta said.
The two officers saw a garage door open in the back yard and an alarm placard on the house and assumed they had the right house, Acosta said. When they went around the back of the house, the dog came out of the garage and was 5 feet away when the first officer fired his weapon.
"Having no time to react, he didn't have time to retrieve the pepper spray, he felt the dog was rather large and too close, the officers reacted with their firearms," he said.
Still believing they were at the right house, Acosta said, the officers conducted a search inside the house and after finding no suspects went outside and realized the house they were supposed to be at was next door.
Vanderford said he got a call from police about the shooting while working in Covina.
"They went through my whole house, searched through it and left the front door open," Vanderford said, adding that one of his two indoor cats got outside. "It kind of felt like they invaded my house."
