People are talking about it everywhere Judy Ledbetter goes in her 900-person Missouri community: At the Dollar General. At the meat market. At the Walmart pharmacy.
“It’s nonstop,” said Ledbetter, 73. “It’s one of the most dramatic things I’ve ever seen.”
A police officer called to help a blind and deaf dog shot him within moments of pulling up on scene. And Sturgeon residents want justice.
In a slice of small-town America where government meetings typically focus on issues like yard junk, and where city officials and residents refer to one another by first name, life has been upended by the saga of Teddy the Shih Tzu.
The zero-stoplight town has been thrust into turmoil in the nearly two weeks since the May 19 shooting of the 13-pound dog; the mayor resigned after initially defending the police officer. The new one suspended the officer. The dog’s owner filed a federal civil rights lawsuit asking for more than $1 million in damages.
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Some residents, including those who describe themselves as pro-police, have gone as far as calling for the dismantling of their two-officer law enforcement agency.
“I think until you get this entire problem solved with the police department, you shut it down,” one man said to applause during a contentious city aldermen meeting this week.
But as outrage has steadily grown in and beyond Sturgeon, the city has declined to dismiss the officer, despite his actions appearing to go against city code. On Thursday, the aldermen launched an investigation into Myron Woodson, who will be on paid leave until its completion, according to a statement the mayor sent to The Washington Post.
Officials otherwise declined to answer questions from The Post, and the officer could not be reached for comment. City code calls for police to impound strays for about a week, housing and feeding them “in a humane manner.”
“This whole situation never should have happened,” said Abbey Harnish, who initially took in Teddy with her former fiancé, Nick Hunter. “It was handled in the wrong way entirely.”
The incident has brought international attention and a 54,000-signature Change.org petition to Sturgeon, a city with the tagline “a great place to grow!” Smaller than a square mile, it’s home to more churches (four) than restaurants (one). It’s the kind of place where golf carts are as common as cars, and where people exchange crops at the community garden on an honor system.
When Teddy escaped from his outdoor kennel on a sunny Sunday, the neighbor who found him posted on the community Facebook page looking for his owner. Pets on the run are common in Sturgeon, to the point where some are “frequent fliers we all know,” said Gina Miller, Ledbetter’s daughter.
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Posts about them pop up on social media one or two times a week, and usually the owners are soon on their way over.
This time, though, the woman who found the lost 5-year-old dog noticed he seemed to be confused and at least partially blind, and she worried he could wander off or get hurt. So she called police for help. Woodson, a former corrections officer recently hired by the city, spent a few minutes trying to corral him. Then he fired two shots.
An hour or so later, Hunter, Teddy’s owner, was tearfully confronting Woodson. In a videotaped exchange, the officer said he shot the dog because he thought Teddy was injured and a stray.
The next day, the city posted a different explanation on its 1,400-follower Facebook page: The officer shot the dog out of concern it had rabies. The city later said it had reviewed the body-camera footage and found the officer’s actions justified.
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Each development left residents angrier. The tension reached a crescendo last weekend when Mayor Kevin Abrahamson resigned without publicly disclosing a reason. The new mayor said the city board did not agree with the ex-mayor’s statement excusing the shooting. The rest of the board had only seen body-camera footage when a local outlet released it, the statement said.
“Like you, we were just as appalled by what we saw,” wrote mayor pro tem Seth Truesdell. “The actions of the Officer involved are not the values and beliefs of the residents of Sturgeon or the board of Alderman.”
By Tuesday, Hunter’s attorneys had filed a civil rights suit alleging the officer conducted an unlawful seizure of Hunter’s pet and the city failed to properly train Woodson to interact with the dog. The suit drew the backing of the national Animal Legal Defense Fund, which said in a statement it will provide a grant to help cover costs.
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The organization included a quote from James Crosby, who wrote the Justice Department’s manual on law enforcement dog encounters, and said after viewing body-camera footage that what happened in Sturgeon could be the “least justifiable dog shooting I’ve ever witnessed in my 30-plus years working with law enforcement.”
Daniel Kolde, one of the attorneys who brought the suit, said a previous case he litigated in the state ended with a $750,000 settlement to a dog’s owner. He suggested more than civil penalties could be warranted in the Sturgeon case.
“We think that Officer Woodson’s actions constitute felony animal abuse and, in addition to our filing of our civil suit, we are calling upon the county prosecutor to bring his own criminal charges against this officer,” Kolde told The Post.
Neither the county prosecutor nor the state attorney general responded to inquiries about whether criminal charges are possible.
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One resident, who spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear of repercussions in the small town, told The Post the incident has made some turn on city officials. Others said they now plan to go to every meeting to make sure they know what their elected officials are doing.
The night the lawsuit was filed, city aldermen met for their regularly scheduled monthly meeting. Dozens of Sturgeon residents came. Others drove in from a town 40 minutes away.
Miller arrived beforehand to set up a table outside with a tri-fold poster of Teddy photos, a donation jar and card for Hunter with the words “Puppy love.”
“Run free Teddy,” one person wrote. “You are loved and missed.”
One by one, residents blasted the police department, alleging to elected officials that it lacked oversight.
“This is your town,” a woman holding a “Justice for Teddy” sign told others in the crowd. “If you don’t speak up now, you might not ever get anything to change.”
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Some community members said they’d prefer to rely on Boone County sheriff’s deputies, like other rural towns do.
“We back the blue except Woodson,” one resident’s sign read. “Fire him!”
Tuesday’s meeting ended with city officials promising to investigate the issue, formally launching the investigation 48 hours later. They said it would be conducted by a third party and made public at its conclusion.
But the sentiment to close the police department persisted days later, even for Ledbetter, who comes from a family of law enforcement officers.
“We don’t need cops,” she said. “Not in this town.”
Teddy’s supporters said they’d keep pushing for more change. Harnish, who recently moved to Iowa, hoped they’d not only fire the officer but also set higher standards for the rest of the department.
“Ultimately, nothing is going to bring my dog back,” she said. “But there’s something that needs to be done and change with both the city and the cop.”
