BINGHAMTON (WBNG) — After the death of her dog, Estavia Cron is speaking out against what she describes as a senseless tragedy.

“I want people to understand that he wasn’t just a dog. He was like my partner, my best friend,” Cron said on Friday.

Her pitbull, Gotti, was shot and killed by Binghamton Police around 5:00 a.m. Wednesday morning. The department was responding to a call saying that a dog’s owner had bitten him and that he was trapped inside of the apartment. The only problem was Cron was at work at the time.

“My brother said the dog is his and that this was his home. My brother is just as in the wrong as the police officer who shot (Gotti) is,” Cron said outside of her apartment on Front Street.

According to Cron, her brother had stayed at her apartment previously, but had been told that he was not allowed there while she was at work. She states that he broke in with a few of his friends, which is when he was bitten by Gotti and called police.

According to the official police report, Cron’s brother claimed right from the start that he was the owner of both the dog and the apartment. Binghamton police did not reach out to Cron, the landlord or the owner of the propery because, “We had no indication at the time that the situation was anything more than it appeared.”

The report goes on to say that the police tried to get a noose around the dog’s neck as well as tase him twice, and when none of those worked, the decision was made to shoot.

Cron said she couldn’t understand why the dog was not tranquilized or animal control was called.

Cron says Gotti’s body was put in a landfill by the Binghamton Department of Public Works, and that the police did not call her, and only left a note in her apartment for her to find briefly explaining the situation.