A New Mexico woman and her family have reached a settlement with the city of Texico after their beloved family dog Pepper was shot and killed by the city's police chief.
Beverly Bentley was at work on Nov. 10, 2021, when Police Chief Douglas Bowman, a 16-year veteran of the force, visited her to tell her he had shot her dog.
“He said something about shooting my dog, and it took me a minute to figure out what he was talking about because he said he was aggressive,” Bentley said. “That dog is the least aggressive dog I've ever had!”
The grim execution was captured on Ring video, where Bowman stood a short distance away on the lawn, staring at the dog as it barked from the porch.
The officer looked over his shoulder in both directions before pulling out his gun and firing. Then he walked out onto the porch and stood over Pepper's body.
Texico Police Chief Doug Bowman was seen on Ring's surveillance camera shooting the dog as it stood on the porch and barked
Bowman, a 16-year veteran of the force, claimed he received a 911 call earlier that day about the dog trying to bite someone
Beverly Bentley, Pepper's owner, described him as 'the least aggressive dog I've ever owned'
“I'm sorry dude, but I had to do that,” Bowman said.
He grabbed Pepper by the collar and dragged the dog onto the lawn before getting a garden hose from the property and washing away the blood.
After seeing the footage of the incident, Bowman filed an incident report, writing that a man called the station saying “There's a damn dog that almost bit me.”
He arrived on scene and saw Pepper, who matched the victim's description, and said the dog began “barking and growling.”
“The victim then came up to me and told me it was the dog and he almost bit him and he was afraid the dog would bite someone else if nothing was done about him,” Bowman wrote.
Pepper left and Bowman followed the dog to the house.
As Pepper reportedly continued to bark and growl, Bowman wrote, “At this point I didn't want the dog to run away again and bite or hurt anyone. “I made the decision to shoot the dog for my safety and the safety of anyone else in the community.”
Bentley insists her beloved dog was not aggressive.
“That dog helped me through a lot of hard times, and then suddenly it was taken away,” she said. “My mother was bedridden, and she put her hand down, and he let her pet him.”
Bowman was seen standing some distance away on the lawn and looking over his shoulder in both directions before pulling out his gun
He then retrieved a hose from the property and washed the dog's blood off the porch
Bowman visited Bentley at work to tell her that he had fatally shot Pepper (right). This year she reached a settlement with the city
Bentley's attorney, Tye Hamon, said that despite reaching a settlement, it would be “appropriate” for an outside agency to meet with the sheriff's department to determine whether criminal conduct occurred.
“He never turned on a video. He never had any sound of the incident; he claims he followed Pepper through the streets and Pepper returned to his house,” Hamon told KOB.
He continued: “We were able to reach a settlement on behalf of Ms. Bentley on the civil side. That doesn't make her whole, but at least the city has taken some responsibility for Mr. Bowman's actions.”
The 2021 incident is not the first time Bowman shot a dog. Three years earlier he claimed an 'aggressive' dog trapped visiting insurance advisers in their car and cornered a woman and her daughter outside their home.
Bowman said he made the decision to open fire after the dog lunged at several people before closing in on him. He noted that he had have talked to the owners in the past about keeping the dog under control.
'I'm not just here to kill animals in this city, but I have to protect the citizens of the community, and at that time that's what I had to do,” Bowman told KRQE.
Bowman is involved in an ongoing child abuse investigation at a Texico home, with witnesses accusing him of participating in a cover-up
The veteran officer was also the subject of a lawsuit in 2012 after a woman called police when she saw children in golf carts throwing fireworks at her dog. Bowman “punished her because her dogs were running loose,” the complaint said.
She complained about him to City Hall and complained again to the mayor when she saw Bowman pointing her house to another officer.
A month later, Bowman said he received an anonymous 911 call about a fight near the house.
When he arrived on the scene, Bowman approached the woman, yelling that he needed to “talk to her” and threatening to get a warrant for her arrest if she left.
Instead, she got into her car and drove away because she was “scared,” the complaint said.
Bowman later requested a warrant for her arrest, claiming she “could have witnessed the possible fight incident reported in the anonymous 911 call.”
The woman was charged and found guilty of resisting, evading or obstructing an officer.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit affirmed a district court's finding that the woman's arrest was motivated by her complaints about Bowman.