Cop Kills Service Dog at Boy's Birthday Party: "I Love Dogs"

Amanda Warren
Activist Post

Officer Tarek Hassani of Filer Police Department in Idaho arrived at Rick Clubb’s residence last Saturday in response to anonymous complaints of dogs running loose. Story and surrounding circumstances follow.

There are three things that have come to light about this story that add crushing insult to injury…

[Warning: Disturbing Graphic Content, Profanity]

Clubb’s 7-year-old Black Labrador, “Hooch,” was a trained service dog obtained to help him with Parkinson’s. His 9-year-old son’s birthday party was ending at 5:30 p.m. when the officer arrived and wasted no time shooting the dog before walking up to the home. Hassani threatens arrest when Clubb wanted to know what happen and attempted to come out to the dog.

Clubb stated:

Well, my dog is dead. I don’t think that’s fair.

And:

He didn’t have to pull out his .45 and shoot my dog. It was right outside my son’s bedroom. What if it had ricocheted through the window?

The video demonstrates a clearly audible and troubling argument, mostly on the part of Officer Hassani who, before trying to justify killing his dog in the driveway, only seemed interested in getting Clubb’s ID.

“Sorry I shot your dog, but your dog would not even let me walk up here. I have it on audio that it’s aggressing me, it’s growling at me -” He talks over the protest of Clubb and continues to rub it in, why he “had” to kill the dog, citing a previous bite from a different dog. He says, “I yelled at him, I even kicked it a couple of times to get it away from me, finally he kept charging towards me so I shot him.” He uses the word “aggressing” three times and claims, “I love dogs, but I’m not going to be bit again.”

As of this writing, zero police officers have been killed by dogs in the line of duty.

How else do these actions add insult to injury?

First, after all is said and done, the officer writes Clubb a ticket for the loose dog! Let’s assume the original intent for writing tickets is for public safety and as a warning to modify the situation. Hassani has now “taken care” of that situation. Clubb now owes money for the death of his service dog? He is fighting the ticket.

Second, Hassani already has a reputation for pulling the trigger indiscriminately. In one other incident, for which he was cleared of any wrongdoing, he was at the tinted window of a chase suspect when he simply fired into the driver’s window – the slug is still lodged in the victim’s head.

Third, this edited-for-length video was obtained by Times-News from the department, i.e. Hassani’s actual dash cam footage. Which means they were so confident that no harm was done that they handed the footage right over. That would be honorable, or at least acceptable, were it not for the fact that the casual observer can see that Hassani’s story doesn’t match up – he is not in danger, even after kicking the service dog.

Police Chief Tim Reeves supports the actions of Hassani, saying he had no choice but to put the Lab down after it kept taking an aggressive posture behind him

Most of the 100+ comments on the original story indicate citizen ire. The video continues to go viral.

Homepage message of Filer Police [unedited]: