Owner Of Dog Fatally Shot By Cop In Bed-Stuy Park: 'I Would Avoid That Park At All Costs'

BED-STUY, BROOKLYN — Laura Stephen adopted her six-year-old dog Ziggy from Social Tees, a rescue in the East Village, when he was five months old. He was her foster dog for a week, and she fell in love. She believed Ziggy was a Catahoula Leopard Dog mix, because he had the markings, intelligence and wistful blue eyes of the breed. Members of Stephen's Bed-Stuy community called Ziggy a "teddy bear" who wouldn't hurt a fly.

On Sunday night, Ziggy was shot to death while playing in a public park.

Stephen was walking Ziggy in Bed-Stuy's Saratoga Park; she said it was just her and Ziggy present in the park, so she let him off-leash for a few minutes. If she had seen anyone else enter the park, she would have leashed him out of respect for others, she told Patch.

Suddenly, two police officers entered the park and discovered Ziggy unleashed, she said. Ziggy was in a picnic table area sniffing around for some food scraps. The approaching female officer began to address Stephen, she said, and Stephen called for Ziggy to come out from the bushes. On his way back to Stephen, Ziggy turned his head to the left, and suddenly the male officer shot him twice in his side, Stephen said.

"It was like a reflex," Stephen said of the shooting. "There was no 'M'am,' there was nothing. No assessment. It was like he sneezed. It was literally like, you know, when a car goes by and splashes you with a puddle, and you're just surprised."

As Ziggy sat in a pile of snow bleeding out his side, the two officers froze and did nothing, Stephen said. As she panicked, she said, the male officer said just one thing to her: "He rushed me."

Ziggy was taken to an animal clinic that specializes in emergency situations, VERG Brooklyn, in Cobble Hill. By the time he arrived one hour after he was shot, it was too late. The family pet had succumbed to his injuries.

"He was nowhere near the officer, he never touched the officer, he was facing me," Stephen said.

Stephen was three feet away from Ziggy when he was shot, she told Patch, crying. She saw the bright flashes of the gun. By the time Ziggy was down on the ground, his leash was back on him.

On Thursday, Stephen has a meeting scheduled with the Civilian Complaint Review Board to try to find out who the officer was and why he appeared to be trigger happy in a public park, she said.

"The loss and the sadness and the terror that I experienced is indescribable, but what if a person was there?"

Stephen said she can't go within blocks of Saratoga Park, and she would warn anyone not to hang out there.

"If there is one unprepared officer, there might be many out there. I would avoid that park at all costs."

In the past few weeks, some who frequent Saratoga Park have complained of police officers from nearby precincts (not their local one) ticketing, threatening and harassing dog owners at the park. "It has escalated rapidly going from a small ticket for having a dog off leash during on leash hours to being chased out of the park by cop cars driving through with spot lights," wrote Bed-Stuy resident Maia Barnett in a Facebook post.

A GoFundMe was started on Tuesday by a member of the Saratoga Park community whom Stephen had never met, she said. The fundraiser garnered over $1,700 for Ziggy's funeral, money that Stephen told Patch she is going to allot to Social Tees and VERG Brooklyn. You can donate to Ziggy's fund here.

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