Robert Price in court: Dog-kill cop's charges not fueled by public pressure, DA's office says
In November, Commerce City Police Officer Robert Price shot and killed Chloe, a mixed breed dog, in an incident caught on video. After Price was charged with animal cruelty, a police group suggested that the accusations were fueled by a lynch-mob mentality. As Price made his first court appearance yesterday, the DA's office denied the charge. Look below to see details, documents and raw video of the shooting that started it all.
Pics, video below.
As we've reported, Chloe was being temporarily kept at a house in Commerce City when she snuck out of the garage. A neighbor, Kenny Collins, called the authorities and recorded law enforcers' actions on a cell-phone camera. The video he shot shows Chloe being tased by a policeman and snared on a catch pole by a community service officer -- the equivalent of animal control in Commerce City. But the policeman, subsequently identified as Price, felt Chloe remained out of control and fired his weapon multiple times, shooting and killing her.
Most viewers of the video didn't see evidence that Chloe was a threat to the public, as the police maintained. As such, community outcry over the shooting was considerable at venues such as the Justice For Chloe Facebook page, which currently has more than 3,600 likes.
Chloe at play.
Several weeks later, the Adams County District Attorney's Office filed an animal cruelty charge against Price. But while this move was cheered by many observers, it was denigrated by the Colorado Fraternal Order of Police, which decried what it saw as a lynch-mob mentality fueled by the video. The group's entire open letter is on view at the bottom of this post, but here's an excerpt:
Under public and political pressure the department suspended its administrative review and sent the matter to the Adams' County DA's office for review. We know that District Attorney Don Quick and his office were inundated with outside complaints about the incident from certain interested groups. In this caustic atmosphere his office found itself under the eye of the media on what had fast become a controversial politically sensitive event.The implication? Quick and the 17th Judicial District DA's office, which serves Adams County, lowered the boom on Price to placate the howling masses. But Quick's successor and an office spokesman say nothing could be further from the truth.
Continue for more about Robert Price's court appearance, including photos, video and the police group open letter.
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