Ex-cop appealing termination

Former Natalia police officer Rudy Anzaldua, 52, said he was terminated last week after he began investigating his coworkers who fatally shot a resident's dogs. Anzaldua said he plans to appeal his termination. Former Natalia police officer Rudy Anzaldua, 52, said he was terminated last week after he began investigating his coworkers who fatally shot a resident's dogs. Anzaldua said he plans to appeal his termination. Image 1 of / 1 Caption Close Ex-cop appealing termination 1 / 1 Back to Gallery

A former Natalia police officer who planned to ask the Texas Rangers to investigate an incident in which his co-workers fatally shot several dogs was fired last week.

Rudy Anzaldua, 52, submitted paperwork Monday through a lawyer to the city of Natalia to appeal his termination, which was effective Wednesday. He was told he was fired because of low performance.

“We believe that he was fired unjustly, and that there are no facts to support his termination,” said Anzaldua's attorney, Robert Leonard of the Combined Law Enforcement Associations of Texas. “We believe he was the victim of retribution by the chief.”

Anzaldua, still listed on the city's website as one of the department's four patrolmen, worked for the city for three years. Last month, he started to question his co-workers after two officers shot and killed six dogs while investigating a complaint involving a homeowner's pets on Feb. 1.

Dominga Cardona, 70, called police to her home in the 900 block of Fifth Street that day to complain about her neighbor's dogs, according to an incident report. Cardona told an officer that dogs belonging to Epifania Avalos, 66, jumped on her as she took out the garbage, and previously, Avalos' dogs had killed her own pets, the report states.

Avalos told the officer she had more than 15 dogs, the report states, and the officer said she was violating seven city ordinances: The dogs weren't vaccinated, Avalos lacked vaccination certificates, the dogs had no rabies tags, Avalos was harboring unvaccinated animals, the dogs were running at-large, the animals were a nuisance and there were more than four dogs in one household.

According to the report, the officer told her her dogs would be removed, and a second policeman and Chief Alfred Ortiz were called for backup.

Avalos refused to help police retrieve the dogs, saying, “If you want them then you get them,” and added, “There's some of these dogs that I cannot touch because they will bite me, and if they bite me then they'll bite you,” the report states.

While trying to capture the dogs, the report states that several animals tried to bite the officers, who responded with gunfire. Six dogs were killed and nine were seized. A small black-and-white dog that ran away when police arrived remained at Avalos' home, and both Avalos and Cardona, who also had uncontained dogs, were issued citations.

The women are due in Municipal Court on March 16.

Anzaldua wasn't there when the dogs were killed, but said he heard his fellow officers retell details of the incident.

“They were bragging about it, and I felt that what they did was wrong — for them to shoot Chihuahuas and laugh about it,” he said, adding that the dogs were a combination of small and large animals. “They were making fun of one officer because they thought he was going to shoot his foot, because a Chihuahua was gnawing on his shoe.”

A dog-lover who had met Avalos during previous complaints, Anzaldua said the shootings upset him. He pulled the incident report, he said, and asked officers if they had video footage of the shooting. He also talked about going to the Texas Rangers but planned to do so anonymously, he said.

Last Tuesday, Anzaldua said Ortiz called him into his office. He said the chief had heard of Anzaldua's plans to ask other agencies to investigate the shootings.

“I feared for my job, and I told him I wasn't going to go anywhere with the information,” he said. “The next day, I got my termination papers.”

Ortiz on Monday declined to comment on the dog-shooting incident or Anzaldua's firing. City Manager Beth Leonesio said she had no comment regarding the former employee and referred a reporter to the city attorney.

She added that the city's position is that the Police Department handled the Feb. 1 incident appropriately.

“It was enforcement of a city ordinance,” she said. “We had so many citizens complain, and the police chief had tried very hard to work with the citizens.”

Avalos' husband on Monday said she'd had the dogs for about a decade and cared deeply for them, spending hundreds of dollars each month on dog kibble.

emoravec@express-news.net