Officer faces charge in killing of dog

Keith Paul

Tuesday, Dec. 14, 1999 | 11:14 a.m.

Clark County prosecutors will file a charge Wednesday against an off-duty corrections officer for last month's shooting death of a Henderson neighbor's dog in a case that has sparked outrage for weeks.

The decision, prosecutors say, was made independently of the hundreds of e-mails sent to the Henderson Police Department and City Hall that ranged from mild disgust to vilifying the shooter, John Stroz, a Clark County Detention Center corrections officer.

"We weighed all the facts and feel like this is the proper thing to do, to take it forward," Deputy Chief District Attorney Ron Bloxham said. "We weighed the statements, the nature of the crime, the position of the animal and we need to file a charge in the interest of justice."

Prosecutors will file a charge of killing or maiming of an animal -- a gross misdemeanor -- in Henderson's Justice Court Wednesday. A hearing in the case is scheduled for Monday, Bloxham said. The charge has a maximum penalty of a year in jail and up to a $2,000 fine.

Stroz, who declined to comment, will not be arrested but issued a summons to appear in court. Metro Police Internal Affairs Bureau is conducting its own investigation of the incident, which is normal anytime an officer fires a weapon. Stroz remains on his normal duties at the jail.

The charge is the result of the Nov. 22 shooting of Judy Burns' border collie, Rosie. Stroz, Burns and other witnesses gave differing accounts of the incident.

Stroz has told investigators he was walking his dog when Burns' border collie came at him. He backed up onto his property and continued to back up until he was at his garage and then fired.

"He said he thought the dog was about to attack his dog and he was afraid of the dog," Bloxham said.

Burns, who lives across a cul-de-sac from Stroz, said her dog was just playing and not being threatening. She saw Stroz pull his gun and came across the street to get the dog and says she pleaded with him not to shoot.

"I was coming up behind her. I almost had her. My hands were either on her or just about on her when he shot her," said Burns, who said she's had the dog since January. "He didn't have to kill Rosie."

Prosecutors talked with Stroz, Burns and other witnesses again and there was even an autopsy performed on the dog before the decision was made to file the charges.

In the weeks since the shooting, Henderson Police and City Hall have gotten hundreds of e-mails along with some phone calls and letters.

"We cannot tolerate this type of action in a civilized society, and a lot of us will be watching to see what happens in this case," one person wrote in an e-mail message.

"To some people, that (shooting the dog) is like killing a child. Just because it is a different species from us does not give us the permission to kill," another person wrote in an e-mail. "If her child had wandered onto his property, would he have killed it?"

The e-mails aren't just from people in the Las Vegas Valley, but from all over the country, Henderson Mayor Jim Gibson said.

The number of calls and e-mails far exceeds the number for any other incident the Henderson Police have handled.

The day after the dog shooting, a 72-year-old school crossing guard was hit by a car in Henderson and seriously injured. She is still in critical condition at University Medical Center on life support.

The number of e-mails send to the Henderson Police commenting on that incident: zero, acting Henderson Police Chief Michael Mayberry said.

"Some officers got together to try to generate some funds for (the crossing guard's) family, and their efforts have not generated near the amount of reaction that (the dog shooting) did," he said.

The fact that so many people have sent angry e-mails about the shooting of the dog doesn't surprise Donald Carns, a UNLV sociology professor.

"Dogs are a piety in our culture. Especially a collie. The word collie connotes the image of Lassie," he said. "Every culture has its pieties -- which doesn't necessarily mean religious -- and we don't always know what they are until they are broken."

He can also see how the crossing guard would not draw the same response as the shooting of Burns' dog.

"The crossing guard being hit is an awful thing, but it doesn't violate a piety," Carns said. "But someone who knocks the Mother Mary statue down and puts it into fecal matter, that person is going to get it."

Bloxham said the e-mails and outrage didn't play into the decision to file the charges. The circumstances of the case did.

"The size of the dog was a factor. If this was a large, vicious dog, that would have of course weighed in his favor," Bloxham said. "But his actions do not appear reasonable."