Buffalo Police To Army Vet: Oops, Wrong Apartment… Sorry We Killed Your Dog (Not)

June 12, 2013 by Ben Bullard

An Army veteran who’d been living at the same Buffalo, N.Y., address for three years got home Monday afternoon to discover that someone had torn down the door, shot up the apartment, ransacked the place and killed his dog, Cindy, who was leashed in the kitchen.
Breaking and entering in broad daylight. Animal cruelty. Adam Arroyo appeared to have been the victim of big-city crime.
But wait — whoever it was had left a piece of paper behind, a note. Not a note, a warrant. It wasn’t robbers after all; this was all police work.

Army vet says police killed his dog

The guy the cops were looking for evidently lived around the building’s corner. He was being sought on suspicion of dealing crack cocaine. The two apartments are completely separate and have separate entrances. All the cops had to do before indulging their trigger fingers was double-check the clearly marked mailbox.
According to WKBW in Buffalo, Arroyo is an Iraq combat veteran who plans to become a member of the National Guard. He told the ABC affiliate he isn’t a drug user or a drug pusher.
“Never. Never. I don’t do drugs. I’m a United States veteran. I work every day. I’m just trying to live my life… For police to wrongfully come into my house and murder my dog… It wasn’t that they felt threatened. No. They murdered my dog. That was my dog, man. That was my dog. They didn’t have to do that, you know. They didn’t have to do that.”
Arroyo now has to pay to have his pet cremated. The door repair will come out of his own pocket. He’s also had to miss work.
The Buffalo P.D. suit who talks to the media trotted out the same stale, self-justifying nonsense you always seem to hear whenever police unload on dogs that aren’t a threat.
Spokesperson Michael DeGeorge said the police “don’t believe the dog was chained or leashed” at the time they burst through the door — even though that’s how Arroyo left his pet in the morning, and how he found her when he got home.
DeGeorge also said the department’s Internal Affairs division will investigate, but that the police (somehow) believe they got the address right.
Arroyo said he plans to press charges against the city.