The officers had already handled the call. They had come to a South Los Angeles home at about 9 a.m. on Thursday, Aug. 27, 2026, for a domestic violence report, and by the time the shooting happened they were standing in the street outside, according to NBC Los Angeles.
About three unrestrained dogs approached them there, LAPD Capt. Mike Bland told the station. One of the dogs bit an officer in what Bland described as the "lower extremities," and the officer opened fire, striking the dog. The owner, Bland said, eventually came outside to restrain the animals.
The dog survived. Los Angeles Animal Services transported the animal for treatment of its injuries, NBC Los Angeles reported. The officer was hospitalized in stable condition, according to the LAPD.
Almost nothing else about the dog is on the public record. The station's account does not give the dog's name, age, breed, or sex, or say which of the three dogs was hit, or report how badly. Nor does it carry any account from the owner, who is not identified and who appears in the story only as the person who came out and took hold of the dogs afterward. Everything known about the sequence in the street comes from a single police captain speaking to a single newsroom.
That is worth stating plainly: only one news organisation has reported this shooting. No independent account of it was located. The department's version of what happened is not contradicted here because nothing has been published to contradict it — and also because nothing has been published to confirm it. No body-camera footage has been released, no owner has been quoted, and no witness other than the officers is described. This entry records that an LAPD officer shot a dog in a South Los Angeles street on that morning. It does not name the officer, because one outlet is not enough to attach an individual's name to a shooting.
The LAPD said a use-of-force investigation into the shooting will be conducted. That is the whole of the accountability record as it stands: an investigation announced the same day, with no findings, no discipline, and no timeline reported. The officer has not been publicly identified. No lawsuit has been reported.
It is the second LAPD dog shooting NBC Los Angeles covered this summer. In June, officers responding to a disturbance call at a Canoga Park apartment — a call that turned out to be a woman celebrating the New York Knicks' NBA championship — shot and killed a dog. Chief Jim McDonnell promised a full investigation of that shooting, and after body-worn camera footage was released, Mayor Karen Bass said she would seek a reevaluation of the department's use-of-force policies regarding pets, the station reported. That reevaluation was announced in June. In August, a second dog was shot, and the department's response was again to announce that it would look into the matter itself.