Owner of dog shot by police wants to set the record straight
BROOKFIELD TOWNSHIP, Ohio - The owner of the dog that was shot and killed after allegedly charging at a Brookfield Police Lieutenant, wants to set the record straight.
You may remember it all started with a 911 call that two dogs were allegedly attacking and killing chickens and roosters at a home on State Route 7 Southeast, for the second time in less than a month.
Randy Culp and his wife Tracy Culp who own the dogs say, "I'm sorry, I know words can't express the difficulty that you're going through."
The couple wants to apologize to Melissa Giesler after their dogs got loose Thursday morning and allegedly attacked and killed some of Giesler's chickens and roosters. The Culp's Doberman Nalah was shot and killed by Brookfield Police Lieutenant Peter Gibbs who came out to investigate. Gibbs says the dog charged at him. Randy Culp said their pets were let out by their 15-year-old autistic son without their boundary collars on.
"Before we woke up, he sometimes gets up early and the dogs were at the door and he just let them out. We normally have these collars on and when they go out they know that they have to stay in the area, we make sure we keep and eye on them," Culp said.
His family is still grieving the loss of their oldest dog and tell it was just a terrible accident, and they've tried to help their son understand.
"When he saw the body he put his hand over his face and started to cry and then said I'm sorry. So he realized it," Culp said.
They say their other dog Jasmine, a one-year-old Norwegian Elkhound returned home on her own, but they feel she hasn't been the same.
The Culp's tell 21 News they are willing to make restitution to Giesler if she wants to contact them, but they also know they must move forward with the misdemeanor charges of Confinement of Dogs that have been filed against Tracy Culp in the court system.
Randy Culp says, "The way they treated us like criminals, like we allowed this to happen on purposed, and we didn't."
They say what hurts the most is how their pet was returned to them, "The dog warden brought the dog in a garbage bag and placed it in our driveway by our garbage cans, and that's the way I found her when I came home."
They plan to have Nalah their Doberman cremated and her remains placed in a custom box with her picture on it.
"This is our fault because we own the dog I get that. But we also lost a family member," Randy Culp said.
