One gunshot left Rocco lying in the front foyer, steps from the front door at his home in Brampton.

Then came the sound of two more shots, according to Mekayla Loots, 10, who was sitting on the couch watching the Family Channel when police officers came through her front door on June 30, shouting. Racing into the hallway, the frightened girl found her family’s 2-year-old German shepherd dead on the floor, the victim of Peel Regional Police bullets.

“I was crying and I said, ‘Why did you guys kill my dog?’”

Two weeks after that event, Peel police have acknowledged officers killed the dog while executing a search warrant at the Cannon Cres. home last month.

The search led to the arrest of Ryan Loots-Scott, 20, Mekayla’s brother, who faces a series of drugs and weapons charges. Police seized a revolver and a quantity of drugs at the home, according to a news release issued at the time, which did not initially indicate that police weapons were fired there.

Staff. Sgt. Dan Richardson, who told the Brampton Guardian officers were responsible for Rocco’s death, didn’t explain why the dog was shot, noting that the case is “before the courts.” But he explained why officers might take such action.

“Judicially-authorized entries to locate and seize firearms present significant dangers to the police. Upon entry when police encounter a dog, the behaviour and threat level of the dog are evaluated. In some circumstances it will require officers to neutralize the threat in order to continue with the execution of the search warrant in a manner that is considered to be as safe as possible for the occupants and the police. Officers have to deal with the situation where they encounter it,” Richardson said.

According to Canadian human rights lawyer Peter Zaduk, who has represented many clients whose dogs were shot and killed during an arrest, the fact that shots were fired shouldn’t be kept from the public.

He said police must re-evaluate how they conduct these searches, as officers “seem not to take any chances at all” and, often, “they provoke dogs into protective stances and essentially cause them to be shot.”

The ordeal has left the Loots family “devastated,” angry and looking for answers, according to Jennifer Loots, Mekayla’s mother.

It was a needless death, she argued, taking issue with the level of force her daughter said was used against Rocco. Loots said she plans on filing a complaint.

“They shot him once and he was on the ground. Why did they have to shoot him two more times? I don’t understand,” Loots said.

Kyle Loots, Mekayla’s older brother, was playing basketball in front of his neighbour’s house when he said police came out of nowhere and swarmed his home.

“I warned them before they came up to the door that there’s a dog in the house — twice,” Kyle said. “But they told me to shut the f--- up. They wouldn’t let me speak.”

While lying on the ground with his hands behind his back, Kyle said, he heard three gunshots, but he didn’t hear Rocco barking as he usually did when people came to the door.

Rocco was certainly protective, according to the Loots family, but that’s what Mekayla liked about him.

She also liked that he would lick her face in the morning and wake her up before school. She liked playing indoor fetch with him, and liked how big he was — that he took up space, like a friend or another brother.

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Loots said he became a member of the family. “He wasn’t just a dog. He was like a little person to us,” she said.

According to the Peel Regional Police Use of Force Report for 2014, officers fired their weapons in 25 incidents last year. In 23 of those cases, the report reveals, police shot an either injured or dangerous animal.

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