A Deputy Shot Seven Abandoned Dogs Dead. The Sheriff's Office Called It Humane.

Adamana, Arizona, is an unincorporated community in Apache County. On September 22, 2023, a deputy was sent there on a report that roughly nine dogs had been abandoned at a property — dogs left behind, with whoever was responsible for them gone.

The deputy was Jarrod Toadecheenie of the Apache County Sheriff's Office. He shot seven of the dogs dead. Two escaped, and were later rescued.

Body-camera video of the shootings was later released, which is the only reason the public can see the killings at all rather than read an agency's summary of them.

The sheriff's office said Deputy Toadecheenie had acted in a "professional and most humane manner." Rescue workers and residents disputed that.

Hold those two assessments side by side. The agency that employs the deputy described the shooting of seven dogs as professional and most humane. Rescue workers and residents said otherwise. There is no third assessment in the record — no outside investigation, no prosecutor's review, no independent examination of the body-camera footage that was released to the public.

The seven dogs are anonymous in the record: no names reported, no breeds. What is known about them is their situation — abandoned, roughly nine of them, at a property in an unincorporated corner of Apache County. Their abandonment was the emergency the county responded to, and the county's response was a deputy who shot seven of them. The two dogs that escaped met the other available outcome: they were rescued, alive. Nothing in the record explains why seven dogs met the first fate while the two that got away met the second.

The dispute over the shootings went nowhere official, as far as the record shows. The body-camera footage came out. The sheriff's office issued its characterization. Rescue workers and residents issued their objections. And there the public record ends.

No discipline was reported. No investigation beyond the sheriff's office's own statement appears anywhere in the record — no reporting requirement or outside authority compelled one. Seven dogs, abandoned once by whoever left them, were shot by the deputy sent to deal with them — and the only official judgment ever rendered on those shootings is the one his own employer wrote.