John Wisely

Detroit Free Press

Officer Darrell Dawson said he observed a "large brown dog."

Owner claims he asked to take the dog inside.

The City of Detroit will pay a pet owner $100,000 after a police officer shot his dog dead while it was chained up beside his home.

Babycakes, a Dogue de Bordeaux, was on a 10-foot leash beside Darryl Lindsay's home in the 11600 block of Strathmoor in January 2015 when Detroit police surrounded the house. They were there to question Lindsay, though he was never charged with a crime, according to his lawsuit filed last year in U.S. District Court.

Officer Darrell Dawson killed the dog in a shooting captured on police video, according to the lawsuit.

"Dash camera video shows Defendant Dawson walk toward Babycakes in her driveway to a position just beyond the reach of Babycakes’ steel cable leash, pause, aim and shoot her twice with his department-issued ... 40-caliber handgun, striking Babycakes in the chest

area," according to the suit.

Lawsuit: Cop killed dog 'Babycakes,' for 'no reason'

The dog died of the injuries. Dawson also can be heard on audio recordings notifying dispatchers that he was going to "take the dog down."

Dawson was attempting to enter the back yard of the home when he encountered the dog, but other officers were able to get there by simply hopping the fence on the other side of the house, according to the suit. Lindsay asked officers if it he could bring the dog inside before it was shot.

"Defendant’s dash cam audio recordings reflect a female police officer remarking that 'that dog got shot and had nothing to do with it!'" the suit said.

"On top of that, police never saw or could even describe the person that they were looking for that day," said Lindsay's lawyer, Chris Olsen of Royal Oak.

It's unclear if Dawson was disciplined by the department for the shooting, though records Olsen obtained under the Freedom of Information Act show Dawson described seeing a "large brown dog" and that he "was verbally counseled ... regarding other avenues of approach one can take when

entering private property for exterior searches.”

The city agreed to the settlement in November. Olsen said he expects his client to get paid in the next month to six weeks.

The city did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the settlement.

Contact John Wisely: 313-222-6825 or jwisely@freepress.com. On Twitter @jwisely.