Police say an Aurora man shot his neighbor’s 10-year-old Vizsla dog with a pellet gun, killing the family pet.
Craig E. Deering, 68, has been charged with two misdemeanors: discharging a weapon in the city and cruelty to an animal, said Bob Friel, an Aurora Police Department spokesman.
The incident happened May 4 in the 19000 block of East Brunswick Drive, according to a police report.
The dog’s owner, Dana VanLiew, said she walked her dog, Kaci, to the neighborhood mail box and by the time they got home the dog collapsed in her garage.
“She just fell over. I thought maybe she had been stung by a bee,” VanLiew recalled. “I thought, ‘Oh great, she’s allergic.’ “
A neighbor helped VanLiew rush the dog to a veterinarian who took X-rays and determined that Kaci had been shot.
“Within 15 minutes she was gone,” VanLiew said.
The vet told VanLiew that Kaci had been shot in the heart.
Later that day as a police officer talked with VanLiew at her home, two people drove up and told the officer that they were “witnesses” to the shooting, according to a police report. The pair said they were working on a car “next door to the suspect,” when they “heard” the gunfire from the home.
The police officer went to Deering’s home, talked with him and “made the decision to arrest the suspect,” the police report said.
The officer recovered a “pistol . . . loaded (with) a pellet” from a garbage can at Deering’s home, according to the report.
Deering could not be reached for comment.
Aurora City Attorney Charlie Richardson said the city will be in contact with the Arapahoe County district attorney’s office to see if felony charges are warranted in the case.
“We may have a situation where this has been undercharged,” Richardson said.
Meanwhile, in the Seven Hills neighborhood, Astrid Weimer, a friend of VanLiew’s who lives across the street from Deering, has put a sign in her front yard. “Animal killer lives there,” the sign reads, with an arrow pointing toward Deering’s home.
VanLiew and Weimer said they believe Deering shot Kaci because she may have walked toward his property, which has a flower garden in the front yard.
Convinced that Deering shot the dog, the pair now fear for other pets in the neighborhood and children as well.
“I don’t feel safe here anymore,” VanLiew said. “What’s he going to do next?”
Deering has a municipal-court appearance scheduled for June 3.
Meanwhile, VanLiew thinks of Kaci every day, she said. Her children, 5 and 7, keep asking: “When is Kaci going to come home?”
“My boys loved her to death. She used to sleep under their cribs when they were just born,” VanLiew said.
Kieran Nicholson: 303-954-1822 or knicholson@denverpost.com
