A Lethbridge, Alta., police officer is in hot water after a video appears to show the officer repeatedly running over and killing a deer with his patrol vehicle.
An online petition is calling for the officer to be fired. The Change.org petition entitled “Fire Lethbridge police officer that ran over injured fawn with police cruiser” has garnered over 8.500 signatures by Wednesday.
Tara Belcher, who launched the online petition on Tuesday, offered her account of the incident on the petition page.
She claimed the officer was responding to reports of an injured fawn which was hit by another car on Saturday.
“The officer then drove over the fawn with his police cruiser multiple times while the fawn shrieked every time it was ran over,” she wrote. “The officer then stopped his vehicle completely on the fawn until he saw it was dead. He then got out of his vehicle, moved the fawn to the side of the road, and drove off.”
The Alberta Serious Incident Response Team, a civilian oversight government agency, is looking into the actions of the on-duty officer.
According to Lethbridge Police Service, the officer, whose name hasn’t been released, drove over the deer on Saturday night.
Police officials were notified about the incident on Monday and police Chief Rob Davis said he “welcome[s] this independent investigation.”
“After watching the video, I understand the concerns people have and I can assure the community we take this incident very seriously,” Davis said in a statement on Tuesday.
Davis added, “transparency is paramount to the public’s trust and confidence in the police service.”
Officials said the unnamed officer will continue working pending the results of the investigation.
