This is the shocking moment a police officer shot and killed a women after opening fire at her dog in Texas.
The inexperienced officer repeatedly fired at the dog as it ran at him behind a shopping centre in a suburb of Dallas, authorities said.
He was checking on the welfare of a woman, named as 30-year-old Margarita Victoria Brooks, who appeared to be passed out in a grassy area behind the plaza on Thursday.
Footage from the officer’s body-worn camera shows the officer walking along a sidewalk and calling out, “hello. Are you OK?”
The woman replies, “yeah, I’m fine.” A dog approaches and the officer asks, “is that your dog?”
As the barking dog runs towards him, the officer yells, “get back.”
He begins to back up and then fires three shots. The woman screams “oh, my God” and continues to cry out.
Arlington police chief Will Johnson told a news conference the dog was a Labrador mix which officers believe belonged to Ms Brooks.
She was shot in the “upper torso”, Mr Johnson said. The dog was wounded and has been quarantined, he added.
“Everything about this call is an absolute tragedy,” the police chief said. “Our hearts are broken for the Brooks family and for the officer involved. Our officer was on scene trying to find an individual who may be suffering from a medical emergency. Clearly, this is not the outcome the officer wanted, nor is it the outcome that the department wanted.”
He said Ms Brooks’ family has been shown the body camera video, and criminal and administrative investigations are underway.
The 25-year-old officer, whose name hasn’t been released, graduated from the police academy in February and hadn’t fired his service weapon in the line of duty before Thursday. He has been placed on administrative leave.
People who live and work near where the shooting occurred said they often saw Ms Brooks walking with her boyfriend and that the couple appeared to be homeless. They said the pair always had a dog with them.
Larry Hamilton told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram that he was homeless for several years and knew Ms Brooks. He said she was “a good-hearted person” who always made sure the dog was fed before she was.
Additional reporting by Associated Press
