A New Mexico woman and her family have reached a settlement with the City of Texico after their beloved family dog Pepper was shot dead by the city's police chief.
Beverly Bentley was at work on November 10, 2021, when Police Chief Douglas Bowman, a 16-year veteran of the force, paid her a visit to tell her that he 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 being aggressive,' Bentley said. ‘That dog is the least aggressive dog I have ever owned!'
The grim execution was caught on Ring video, where Bowman stood some distance away on the lawn, staring at the dog as it barked from the porch.
The officer glanced over his shoulder in both directions before pulling out his pistol and firing. Afterwards, he walked onto the porch and stood over Pepper's body.
Texico Police Chief Doug Bowman was seen on Ring surveillance camera firing at the dog as it stood on the porch and barked
Bowman, a 16-year veteran of the police 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 have ever owned'
‘I'm sorry dude, but I had to do that,' Bowman said.
Grabbing Pepper by the collar, he dragged the dog onto the lawn before retrieving a hose from the property and washing away its blood.
After seeing the footage of the incident, Bowman filed an incident report, writing that a man called the station saying ‘there is a damn dog that almost bit me.'
He arrived on the scene and saw Pepper, who matched the victim's description, and said the dog began ‘barking and snarling.'
‘The victim then came up to me and told me that was the dog and that it had almost bit him and he was afraid the dog might bite someone else if something wasn't done about him,' Bowman wrote.
Pepper took off and Bowman trailed the dog to the home.
As Pepper allegedly continued to bark and snarl, Bowman wrote: ‘At this point, I did not want the dog to run away again and bite or harm someone. I made the decision to shoot the dog for my safety and the safety of anyone else in the community.'
Bentley insists that her beloved dog was not aggressive.
‘That dog got me through a lot of hard times, and then all of a sudden, he was taken away,' she said. ‘My mother was bedridden, and she would put her hand down, and he would let her pet him.'
Bowman was seen standing some distance away on the lawn and glancing over his shoulder in both directions before pulling out his pistol
He then retrieved a hose from the property and washed the dog's blood from the porch
Bowman visited Bentley at work to tell her that he had fatally shot Pepper (right). She reached a settlement with the city this year
Bentley's lawyer, 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 if criminal conduct had been committed.
‘He never turned on any video. He never had any audio of the incident; he claims that he followed Pepper through the streets and that Pepper returned to its home,' Hamon told KOB.
He continued: ‘We were successful in obtaining a settlement on behalf of Ms. Bentley on the civil side. That doesn't make her whole, but at least the city did take 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 had pinned visiting insurance adjusters 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 coming at him. He noted that he had spoken to the owners in the past about keeping the dog contained.
‘I am not out here to just kill animals in this town, but I've got 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 investigation into child abuse at a Texico home, with witnesses accusing him of taking part in a cover-up
The veteran cop was also the subject of a lawsuit in 2012 after a woman called police when she saw children in golf carts throwing firecrackers at her dog. Bowman ‘chastened her about her dogs being loose,' according to the suit.
She complained to City Hall about him and lodged another complaint with the mayor when she saw Bowman pointing out her home to another officer.
A month later, Bowman said he received an anonymous 911 call about fight near the home.
Upon arriving on the scene, Bowman approached the woman, shouting that he ‘needed to talk to her' and threatening to get a warrant for her arrest if she left.
She instead got in her car and drove off, as she was ‘frightened,' according to the suit.
Bowman later sought a warrant for her arrest, claiming that she ‘could have been a witness to the possible fighting 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 upheld a district court's determination that the woman's arrest was motivated by her complaints about Bowman.
