Tag: dog shot

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Cop who shot dog is cleared, Wyckoff police chief says

otto

MAY 15, 2015, 10:18 PM    LAST UPDATED: SATURDAY, MAY 16, 2015, 12:17 AM
BY ABBOTT KOLOFF
STAFF WRITER |
THE RECORD

The Wyckoff police officer who fatally shot a German shepherd after going to the wrong address to investigate a burglary report last month has been exonerated by a township internal affairs investigation after the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office declined to look into the matter, authorities said in a news release Friday night.

Township Police Chief Ben Fox issued a five-page statement saying that an investigation by his department had “exonerated” the officer, Kyle Ferreira, “from any claim questioning his truthfulness in this incident.” Fox said the officer believed the dog could “cause serious bodily harm” after it bit him in the foot and latched onto his right boot. And Ferreira followed state Attorney General’s Office guidelines for the use of deadly force, the chief said.

Fox said that he was taking an “unusual step” by releasing details of the investigation because “many facts have been misrepresented.”

He said the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office had declined to investigate the matter, citing state regulations, and sent it back to his department’s internal affairs unit. The chief had asked the Prosecutor’s Office to investigate because “allegations were being made that the police department was not being truthful,” he said in the statement.

https://www.northjersey.com/news/cop-who-shot-dog-is-cleared-wyckoff-police-chief-says-1.1335901

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Wyckoff cop who shot dog allegedly hit suspect with police car in Newark in 2010

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MAY 7, 2015    LAST UPDATED: THURSDAY, MAY 7, 2015, 12:25 AM
BY STEVE JANOSKI AND ABBOTT KOLOFF
STAFF WRITERS |
THE RECORD

The officer who fatally shot a Wyckoff family’s 5-year-old German shepherd was also involved in an alleged 2010 police chase in Newark that ended when the police car he was driving fatally struck a domestic violence suspect.

The officer, Kyle Ferreira, was not charged or indicted in the Newark case, the Essex County Prosecutor’s Office said Wednesday. And Wyckoff Police Chief Benjamin Fox said that the department knew about the incident when he was hired in February 2012.

Newark agreed to settle a civil lawsuit related to the incident for $350,000, according to federal court documents. Ferreira was among 160 Newark police officers who were laid off in late November 2010 because of budget cuts, an attorney for Newark said.

Fox said that the Essex County Prosecutor’s Office had cleared Ferreira of any criminal wrongdoing in the case and that it was “simply ruled an accident.” He said that Wyckoff authorities were “aware of it, and we investigated it.”

Katharine Carter, a spokeswoman for the Essex County Prosecutor’s Office, said prosecutors had presented the case to a grand jury, which found “no cause for action” against Ferreira. “In essence, his actions were deemed to be justified,” Carter said.

https://www.northjersey.com/news/wyckoff-cop-who-shot-dog-allegedly-hit-suspect-with-police-car-in-newark-in-2010-1.1326807

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Wyckoff family whose dog was killed by police at loss for answers

otto

MAY 5, 2015, 6:05 PM    LAST UPDATED: TUESDAY, MAY 5, 2015, 11:15 PM
BY STEVE JANOSKI
STAFF WRITER |
THE RECORD

The Vukobratovic family of Wyckoff returned to their “empty house” on Tuesday night, but they did so knowing that the tragic story of Otto, their German shepherd shot by a policeman during a mistaken burglary call, is likely to get a formal review by the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office.

That was the result of a sometimes emotional Wyckoff Township Committee meeting where the family had gone demanding answers to what happened — step-by-step — last Wednesday in the moments leading up to Patrolman Kyle Ferreira’s shooting 5-year-old Otto twice in the back yard of family’s Lawlins Road home.

The meeting also saw boisterous picketing outside Township Hall by about 60 people — some with their dogs — who questioned the appropriateness of Ferreira’s response to what police say was an attack by Otto. And it included an apologetic Police Chief Benjamin Fox again expressing his department’s pain and regret over the incident, as well as Mayor Kevin Rooney’s stern condemnation of how Ferreira has been pilloried on social media even as a police review of the incident is continuing.

https://www.northjersey.com/news/wyckoff-family-whose-dog-was-killed-by-police-at-loss-for-answers-1.1325929