Family Upset After Chicago Cops Fatally Shoot Dog, Fail To Catch Robber
CHICAGO (CBS) -- A South Side family is angry because police shot their dog and then failed to catch an armed robber even though he was hiding out just feet from where they were standing, reports CBS 2's Mike Puccinelli.
"I said why'd you shoot the dog?," said neighbor Aaron Thompson. "He said I didn't shoot the dog, the assailant shot the dog."
The dog is Castro, an Italian Mastiff who'd been in the Taylor household for ten years.
"It's like I lost a family member…very difficult," said Terry Taylor, the dog's owner.
The assailant is an armed robber who had held up a man early this morning in Washington Park. Police responding to the 911 call spotted the suspect and chased him until they believed they lost him in the yard.
"The police ran in my yard, opened the gate and shot my dog," Taylor said.
But it turns out the robber never made it into the yard. Taylor's son found that out some three hours later when he got the surprise of his life.
"He came from under the porch. He had the gun in his hand, he was backing up talking to me like this, and he is telling me 'I apologize for the police killing your dog, I seen the whole thing.' He put the gun back on his hip proceeded down the street," said DeMarkus Southern.
But not before the robber ditched his clothes in the garbage can and abandoned his baseball hat under the stairs.
What makes the story even more bizarre is that Southern says while they were all sitting on the stairs his sister pulled up in a car. She saw a man through a crack underneath the stairs with what looked to be a hammer in his hand. That hammer was the gun.
The sister didn't say anything because everyone seemed so calm she just assumed the guy was actually working on the stairs and had no idea he was an armed robber hiding from the police who were just steps away.
"It was shocking because it had been three hours," Southern said.
Now Southern is just glad he and his family members weren't hurt.
Southern says the armed robber is now free because the police botched their investigation. He was last seen getting on a bus with the gun in his waistband.
