Updates with suspect arrested.

A man was arrested Saturday, April 2, after a family said their dog was shot at point-blank range Friday, April 1, in a neighbor’s yard in Mead Valley, an unincorporated area northwest of Perris.

Christopher Samuel was arrested on suspicion of animal cruelty and negligent discharge of a firearm and booked into Robert Presley Detention Center, according to a Riverside County sheriff’s news release.

UPDATE: Investigators turn case over to DA’s Office

A video of the incident was uploaded to Facebook on Saturday morning. The footage shows the 2-year-old pitbull running around a yard being followed by a man with a gun. Gunshots can be heard and the man appears to fire at the dog.

“He was a very sweet dog; he wasn’t a threat,” said Debbie Meindl-Lemmon, stepmother of the dog’s owner, Michael Lemmon.

Riverside County sheriff’s deputies responded to the home at 3:30 p.m. and found the deceased dog on a residential property, said Deputy Armando Munoz. The investigation is ongoing.

Riverside County Department of Animal Services spokesman John Welsh said the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department will be the lead investigative agency on the case, but that animal services officials did pick up the dog.

“We did retrieve the animal and if it’s asked of us we will get a necropsy performed just as standard procedure,” he said. “The necropsy will tell us the cause of the animal’s death.”