Dog shooter on desk duty

COEUR d’ALENE — The Coeur d’Alene Police Department officer who shot and killed a 2-year-old Labrador last week at Java on Sherman has been reassigned to office duty, Chief Ron Clark said.

Clark addressed the Coeur d’Alene City Council tonight, calling the shooting of Craig Jones’ dog, Arfee, a “tragedy.”

On July 9, an officer responding to a non-emergency report of a suspicious vehicle potentially connected to child enticement fired once through the window of Jones’ white van, killing Arfee.

“I have initiated a full review of this incident and I’m going to do everything that I can to avoid anything like this happening in the future” Clark said.

The internal investigation, Clark added, will be “complete and objective.” Once the investigation is concluded, the results will be reviewed by the city’s administration and legal team.

A third party which Clark said has not yet been determined will also be reviewing the incident. He said the findings of the investigation will be made public only after it is complete.

“People have inquired about getting personnel discipline information about our personnel, about this incident and other incidents as well,” Clark said. “State law, unfortunately, does not allow us to release personnel discipline matters or information.”

Prior to Clark addressing the council, Mayor Steve Widmyer called the shooting a “regrettable event.”

“We, as a city, are truly sorry for that,” Widmyer said. “As a city government, and I speak for the council and myself as mayor, we take complete responsibility for our actions.”

The incident has garnered national and global media attention. Activists have spoken out online and in social media.

Anonymous, a group of loosely organized international activists founded in 2003, released a video last weekend condemning the shooting of Arfee.

The “hacktivist” group is responsible for hacking numerous organizations, including a 2012 incident when the group responded to the Department of Justice shutting down file-sharing site Megaupload on allegations of copyright piracy. In a wave of distributed denial-of-service attacks (one method involves saturating a website with external communications requests to the extent that it cannot respond to legitimate traffic), Anonymous shut down the FBI, record labels and other copyright organization websites.

“To the Coeur d’Alene Police Department, to all enforcers of abuse; hear us clearly. We are free and independent citizens, we are anonymous. We do not forgive, we do not forget. You can expect us,” the video warns.

When asked if the department is concerned about the Anonymous video, Clark said his department is concerned about all of the information they are receiving.

Widmyer also addressed the backlash against Java on Sherman since the shooting.

“I want to state to the restaurant owners, Dave and Lindsay Patterson, where this incident occurred, that they did absolutely nothing wrong,” Widmyer said. “They in no way deserve criticism in regards to this incident.”

Clark said he reached out to Jones prior to the meeting, the two had a good conversation, and discussed the incident in its entirety.

“The police department is handling over 40,000 calls for service a year with 72 officers. This incident is one of those calls,” Clark said. “Please don’t let one incident discount the quality of law enforcement that your department is providing on a day-to-day basis.”