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SPARTA, Mo. (AP) – A southwest Missouri police chief has resigned after killing a caged pit bull so he could respond to a car crash.

Sparta Mayor Mike Younker says Police Chief Andrew Spencer submitted his resignation. The Springfield News-Leader that Spencer was placed on administrative leave in late November.

Spencer placed a police report on Facebook and later took it down, though it was verified by the city attorney.

It said a resident told Spencer that the dog was roaming the streets and feared the animal would hurt children. Pit bulls are prohibited in Sparta.

The report says Spencer caught the dog, but was unable to find a shelter that would take it.

The report says Spencer was dispatched to a crash and killed the dog at the department’s shooting range.

This is an excerpt from “The Story of Chase” on Facebook:

On Tuesday 11/10/15 I got home around 3:15pm. Noticing Chase was let out of the back yard I immediately started searching for him. I went to the police station in Sparta around 5pm. I was told by a police officer that they didn’t catch any dogs that day. He said they got a call about Chase, but responded to an assault call instead. So we called for a whole week trying reach chief Andrew Spencer. He did nothing but give us a run around for days. So we called all dog pounds and shelters and rescue one where we got Chase from. A few days later we get a call from chief Spencer, saying he had shot a pit bull chow mix that he picked up in the trailer park down the road from us. He told us He buried him in the sludge field if we wanted to make sure it was him. We didn’t find any freshly dug holes anywhere. So we tried the Sparta shooting range but we only found a pile of burnt meth pipes, cell phones and pill bottles. Then we found out from our neighbor on Friday evening that Chase had been picked up from an unmarked police car in front of our house. So we call and call and call trying to get a hold of chief Spencer again to pick up our dog. Finally, 5 days later, chief Spencer contacted us saying he dug him up and left him at the police station. We picked him up that night after work. He was wrapped in a garbage bag, no traces of dirt on him or the trash bag anywhere. We got the police report. It never showed who he supposedly bit. So we took our fur baby home after searching for him for a week and laid him to rest. All our 1 year old son says every time he sees a dog is “Chase”. We want justice for what has been done.

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Information from: Springfield News-Leader, http://www.news-leader.com