The dog had been walking in and out of the roadway on Millville Cedarville Road for at least two days: white and brown, a pit bull, no owner, and a visible neck injury from a collar that had become embedded in the skin. Volunteers had been leaving food out for it. On June 8, 2020, a New Jersey State Police trooper fired one round into what New Jersey 101.5 reported was the dog's "chest area." The dog did not die immediately. It walked off into the woods, bleeding, and was never found.
Only one news organisation, New Jersey 101.5, has reported this shooting; no independent account was located. Everything that follows is as that outlet reported it.
There is no video of the shooting: according to the outlet, the trooper switched off his body camera before approaching the dog. What it did record, the outlet reported, was a township animal control officer appearing to tell the trooper to concoct a rationale for shooting: "It came towards you, it came at me. That's all." The trooper chuckled and answered, "Not with her watching" — a reference to a woman at the scene who was pressing the animal control officer to bring a trap. That woman told the trooper the dog had not "shown any signs of aggression whatsoever." "She keeps hanging around here," the trooper said, per the outlet. "If she would get the hell out of here, we would be done with this thing."
The two officials' own reports do not match. Per New Jersey 101.5, the animal control officer wrote that the dog had "lunged" at the trooper; the trooper's report did not say the dog tried to attack, stating instead that it had become "more aggressive, and began advancing towards us."
A State Police spokesman told the outlet that troopers had been sent three times in 24 hours because the dog was "creating dangerous traffic conditions by walking in the roadway," and that the trooper fired "based on the totality of the circumstances," including the dog "aggressively advancing" toward the two men. The spokesman also defended the camera being off: "Based on the circumstances surrounding this incident, the body worn camera was not required to remain activated."
The animal control officer said he had spent more than two hours trying to catch the dog, that it nearly caused three crashes, and that "not every dog you can catch." He did not deploy either of the two large traps he has access to; he said a trap would not work because the dog was refusing food, and that a veterinarian would probably have put it down anyway: "This dog could not be saved."
Before the shooting, an advocate with Reformers–Advocates for Animal Shelter Change in NJ called the State Police barracks in Port Norris. "Is there any way we can stop this dog from being shot?" she asks in a recording of the call. "The trooper is on scene and he is going to handle the investigation," the duty sergeant answers, before hanging up.
On July 23, 2020, that group filed a complaint with the state Department of Law & Public Safety asking that both officials be investigated and charged, noting that the state animal code does not treat shooting as an acceptable form of euthanasia. The New Jersey Certified Animal Control Officers Association criticised the capture attempt. The State Police defended the trooper's conduct and did not answer the outlet's question about its policies on shooting animals. As of the only published account, no charges had been filed and no discipline reported. The dog was never recovered.