His Report Said the Dog Charged Him. His Own Body Camera Said Otherwise.

The complaints said there was an aggressive dog in Lake City, Arkansas, and on December 22, 2025, animal control officer Cameron Tyler Casey responded. What happened next exists in two versions — and in this case, the record establishes which one was false, because Casey admitted it.

The first version was the one Casey wrote in his official report: he tried a dart gun, the attempt failed, the dog charged him, and he had to shoot.

The second version was on his body camera. The footage contradicted his report, and Casey admitted shooting Cujo with a .22 rifle — and later locating the dog and euthanizing him.

Casey pleaded guilty to a felony count of filing a false report and to two misdemeanor counts of animal cruelty, covering both what he did to Cujo and a separate incident in which he kicked a dog.

Notice the structure of those charges. The felony — the most serious count — was for the paperwork: the false report. The cruelty to the animals themselves, Cujo included, was charged as misdemeanors. As the charges were drawn in this case, lying about the dog was a graver offense than what was done to the dog.

The sentence: 36 months of probation, one day in jail, $690 in fines, and 120 hours of community service.

The accountability record

This is what accountability looks like when it actually arrives: a guilty plea to a felony and two misdemeanors, secured because the officer's own body camera contradicted his official account. It is worth being clear about what carried the case. Not an internal review. Not the report — the report was the crime. A camera. Without that footage, the official record of December 22, 2025 would be Casey's version — a failed dart, a charging dog, a justified shot — and this article would end the way so many on this site do, with nothing to report.

Instead, there is a consequence on the record, and it deserves to be stated in full. For shooting Cujo with a .22 rifle, filing a false report about it, and a separate act of cruelty toward another dog, Cameron Tyler Casey received: probation for 36 months, community service for 120 hours, fines totaling $690, and jail for one day. Cujo is dead. The officer who shot him and lied about it in an official document — a lie he pleaded guilty to — will serve twenty-four hours.