Java owners discuss incident
<p>This card was left on the windshield of Craig Jones' white van after a member of the Coeur d'Alene Police Department shot and killed his 2-year-old Labrador, Arfee. Though the card belongs to Sgt. J. Walther, the department has not released the name of the officer who actually shot the dog.</p>
<p>Arfee, a 2-year-old black Labrador, was shot and killed Wednesday by a Coeur d'Alene Police officer in the parking lot of Java on Sherman.</p>
COEUR d'ALENE - David Patterson, who owns and operates Java on Sherman with his wife, Lindsay, said he is devastated by the officer-involved shooting of a dog that occurred in the parking lot of his store Wednesday.
Patterson called the non-emergency line at the Coeur d'Alene Police Department after he arrived at work Wednesday morning and saw a white van. The van, which was facing Lakeside Avenue, matched a description he received on social media of a vehicle suspected of targeting children in the area.
"It's my responsibility to call the police department. As a father, as a business owner, as a member of this community, it's my responsibility to make that phone call," David said.
According to the Pattersons, several police officers and at least two patrol vehicles responded to the call. David returned to work and said he did not hear the gunshot that killed Craig Jones' 2-year-old Labrador, Arfee. When he saw that the officers were packing up and leaving the parking lot, he went outside and thanked them for their quick response time.
"The officer took my name, my birthday and my phone number and then instructed me to call the tow company if I wanted the car to be removed," David said. "He did not mention that they had discharged a weapon, killed a dog, and removed a dog from the vehicle. They did not mention that this is not the van that they were looking for. They just said that they were packing up and leaving, and basically let me deal with the ramifications of what would happen afterward."
Shortly after the officers left, David was confronted by a "distraught" Jones in the store, who told him that he had "gotten his dog shot."
"Mind you, we don't know what's going on and are just like 'what?'" Lindsay said.
"I didn't know the dog had been shot. I didn't know that they were leaving that for me to clean up," David added. "All I know is that this is the owner of a van that was suspected for luring children."
David and the dog owner then went outside the store, where the conversation continued. At one point, David asked Lindsay to go back inside and call 911 so Jones could speak with officers and "hash everything out" with them. However, the Pattersons' Java landlord saw the scene play out and escorted Jones off the property.
"That was not the nicest of conversations because at that point we didn't know who he is, what had happened or how it happened," David said of his encounter with Jones. "We're just reacting to what is happening right in front of us. Had I known that information, I would have been able to be there and be able to try to make that connection."
The aftermath of the shooting has left the Pattersons "completely caught in the crossfire," Lindsay said. Java on Sherman has received hundreds of negative comments on Facebook, comments that David said go against their intentions for the business to connect members of the community with each other.
"What happened was horrible, I just wasn't given the opportunity by the police department to do anything about it. They left. They left," Patterson said. "They discharged a weapon in our parking lot and left."