FORT SMITH, Ark. — Fort Smith Police were in the backyard of a Texas Road neighborhood in Fort Smith when three-year-old dog Echo was shot by police in her own backyard.
Echo died later that night.
Several calls from neighbors came in saying that an unknown black male was attempting to break into someone’s apartment nearby.
An officer reported seeing a black male sitting on the front porch of 22-year-old Isiah Chandler‘s home.
“Does anyone live at this residence? Is it a black dude?” officers can be heard saying on bodycam footage.
Isaiah told officers he was upstairs asleep. His mother Jennifer says he let their two dogs out into the backyard to use the bathroom and didn’t know police were out there looking for a robbery suspect.
The family says Echo was startled by the police.
Isaiah was handcuffed and placed in the back of a police cruiser.
“At what point did my son's description match the description of the suspect?” Jennifer said.
In the video, you can hear police call him the robbery suspect. As it turns out, Isaiah was not the man they were looking for.
Animal control took Echo to the vet but sadly she did not make it.
Jennifer says she is upset that the family has lost one of their own and she is frustrated by the entire situation.
“Why did it have to go that far to where my son was wrongfully detained?" she said.