‘Justice for Dixie’: Community rips Lorain officer’s shooting of family’s retriever

Caution: The video above includes graphic images of an animal being shot.

CLEVELAND, Ohio – Community members are distraught after a Lorain police officer shot and killed a family’s dog. The animal was harmless, residents say.

Owner Tammie Kerns said she and her daughter were trying to gather her four dogs that got loose from her house near Oberlin Avenue and West 8th Street on Sunday afternoon when a police officer instructed her to get them under control.

In the officer’s body camera footage released by Lorain police, one of Kerns’ dogs approaches the officer and walks away.

Shortly after, Kerns’ yellow labrador retriever, Dixie, approaches, and the officer shoots the dog. The officer fires his gun at least once while the dog is crawling in the street after attempting to get away.

“She was paralyzed after one bullet, but he just kept shooting her. He shot her four times,” Kerns said in an interview with cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer.

She added that she thought he was getting out of his vehicle to help her.

“This was excessive force. It was terrifying. He could have tased her or used mace. But he immediately reached for his gun,” she said. “The dogs got out once before and that officer opened his backdoor to help me get them back.”

Kerns said she bought Dixie in 2020 and described her as a loving animal who liked to play in the pool and with children.

A number of neighbors gathered around as the dog died. The neighbors yelled at the officer for shooting the animal, saying she was harmless.

“Your dog charged me,” the officer says in the video.

Angry residents joined Kerns and her family at the Lorain police station Friday to protest police and demand justice for Dixie.

Kimberly Goddard, Dick Goddard’s daughter, is urging authorities to follow the state law named after her father. The law, passed in 2016, makes the harming of an animal a fifth-degree felony.

“This was animal abuse,” she said. “Some people are just not meant to be police officers.”

Lorain police said the incident is being investigated by the department’s Office of Professional Standards. Police Chief James McCann is also working with several “outside expert consultants” to review the case.

Kerns said she plans to file a lawsuit against the Lorain police and wants the officer who gunned down the dog to be fired. A vigil is planned for noon Sunday at Oberlin and West 8th Street.