WARNING AND MEDICAL ALERT: This article and associated videos and documents are very traumatic. If you are on Blood Pressure Medication be sure to take your medicine and wait 10 minutes before reading this article and watching the video. One video is shown at normal speed, then at 25% speed and then in reverse so every aspect of the vicious police dog attack on the four year old girl is clearly seen and what transpired cannot be questioned. You will hear the screams from those neighbors observing the dog attack on the child as well. This information clearly shows the Shelby Police Department and City of Shelby Officials at the highest of levels are covering up the truth of this matter. If you don’t want to have your mind changed by positive truth, do not read any further.
Shelby: My original article regarding the Shelby Police Department Police Dog biting a totally innocent four year old black child in a black neighborhood out of a car and dragging her down the street was published April 5, 2018. That article included a memorandum from the Shelby Police Department Chief of Police to the City Mayor, City Manager and others informing them that one of the Shelby Police Department K-9 Officers had bitten a four year old child by an unfortunate accident. The bite caused minor wounds to the child who was taken to the Hospital, treated and immediately released. Like the treatment was a BandAid or something.
My original article also included a poor quality video taken by a bystander, a poor quality picture of the wound that included a Wound Meter (like a flexible ruler) and the full text of the Chief’s Memo. The Shelby Star also published a slanted account of the incident that also tried to white-wash the occurrence. All the evidence provided at that time seemed to indicate things were worse than reported in the Chief’s memo. Now, new information proves beyond any doubt that the incident was much worse than I ever imagined.
A history: In general terms, The Shelby Police Department was out in force serving felony criminal warrants in a predominantly black neighborhood in broad daylight. In serving their warrants they recognized someone they knew had outstanding warrants and moved to arrest him. The suspect ran into a house, exited through a window and ran away. The SPD gave chase and in the process released a K-9 officer. As the K-9 Officer gained ground on the suspect at an intersection, the suspect came upon a random vehicle stopped at a stop sign or stoplight and at first tried to get into the vehicle but the K-9 Officer was too close, so the suspect jumped on top of the vehicle. Up to this point there is no contention with the police accounts. What happens next is the problem. A major problem.
According to the document put out by the Shelby Police Department, included in full in my original article and included in part as follows:
Per SPD Chief of Police Jeff Ledford;
March 16, 2018-Second Incident;
The second incident took place about 3 minutes after the one above started. Our vice detectives were working over on Buffalo Street when they seen a man with a warrant on him for not registering as a sex offender. He was searched incident to arrest and a pistol was found on him. He was a convicted felon as well. While they were doing this they noticed a man who had several warrants on him run into a house. They went to the house and nobody came to the door. The owner was notified and she agreed to let them go into the house to get him. As they were walking to the door the man jumped from a window and ran. The k9 was sent after him since he had felony warrants on him. The dog chased him about 20 yards when the man encountered a car sitting at the intersection of Buffalo Street and Lineberger. He tried to get into the back door of the car and after opening the door he jumped up on top of the car and started yelling for the driver to “go”. The dog had gotten to him and ran around the car, right on the side where he had opened the back door of the car. A 4 year old girl was in the back seat and as any child or person would be, she was scared of this man jumping on the roof of her car. She made a move to come out of the car and the dog was right there at the open door. He bit her right under her arm. Luckily it was a flesh would and no damage to her muscles or anything, but the bad part was that she was bit. She was taken to the hospital where they treated her wound. We stayed with the family and helped them with all their needs until she was finished with treatment. Their car was damaged so we made arrangements for them to have a rental car until theirs can be fixed. We will be taking care of that next week for them. Although all policies were followed, this accident still happed and we can’t look away from the fact that our dog bit the young girl, regardless of circumstance. We will continue to take care of her and her family as none of this was their fault. I have tried to remind the media and all the reporters that asked that the young girl reacted as any one of us would with someone jumping on the top of the car and trying to get inside. We need to keep her and her family in our prayers.
As you can tell its been a busy afternoon and evening. I wanted to get this information to you so you could answer questions should any arise. If you have any questions let me know and I will try my best to get you an answer. Thanks for all you do and I hope you have a great weekend…jl
Jeffrey H. Ledford
Chief of Police
Shelby Police Department
That is THE official story from the City of Shelby and they are sticking to it. Shelby Star too.
But now I have new information, an excellent quality video-actually two videos and good source testimony backed up by these videos. This new information totally destroys the account put out by the SPD and the Shelby Star.