‘So Aggressive’: Virginia Cops Shoot Black Woman’s Dog After Entering the Wrong Home, Then Allegedly Threaten to Arrest Her If She Doesn’t Stop Crying
A distraught Virginia woman is calling for justice in the senseless killing of her dog at the hands of a Norfolk police officer.
Stormi, a 3-year-old pit bull-type dog, was fatally shot by an officer responding to an emergency at Alizana Cummings’s apartment building. The tragic encounter occurred on Father’s Day, June 21.
Police placed the officer on administrative leave as the investigation continues.
Tragically, Cummings watched her beloved pet take her last breath. In an emotional interview with local TV station News 3, she said an officer threatened to arrest her if she didn’t calm down.
With tears streaming down her face, she shared details of the heartbreaking incident. “I was begging them to please let me save my baby, and they were so aggressive with me,” she said.
“They were telling me that if I just go by her and can’t calm down, that they were going to put me in handcuffs and arrest me. But I knew when she took her last breath, and I seen her eyes go back in the back of her head. I knew she was gone. I knew my baby was gone.”
At the time of the shooting, she was at the community pool and noticed police vehicles pull up. After returning to her apartment, a neighbor intercepted her to deliver the terrible news. She soon found her fatally injured dog. “Blood was all over my hands and all over me. And I was just shaking her,” she said, crying. “I was saying, Stormi, wake up.”
Cummings, 25, also has a second dog, seven-month-old Cashmere, but considers Stormi her “baby.” She told the outlet, “She loved belly rubs and whipped cream.”
The officers were responding to a report of an accidental self-inflicted shooting on the third floor of the apartment building. But Cummings actually lives on the first floor. The Virginian-Pilot reports dispatch records show officers were responding to a call in apartment 304, while Cummings lives in apartment 102.
“How did they mix those numbers up?” Cummings told the newspaper.
The Norfolk Police Department told News 3 that when officers entered, the dog door was left ajar. They won’t confirm whether police entered the wrong apartment. Cummings told the Virginian-Pilot she left her door unlocked because she was just across the street from her apartment. The newspaper reported that other neighbors in the complex said they often did the same in their quiet neighborhood.
That quiet was shattered on June 21.
“While on scene for this incident, an officer discharged their service weapon one time in the direction of an animal as it was approaching,” the police stated in a guarded press release. “The animal, a dog, was pronounced deceased. No other injuries were reported during this incident.”
Cummings wants justice for Stormi and has contacted a lawyer. She places the blame squarely on the trigger-happy cop, telling News3: ‘It was the officer’s fault. He had the wrong apartment.”