Owner of dog shot by police says he wasn’t ‘vicious,’ SLCPD says officers followed protocol

SALT LAKE CITY (ABC4) — On Sunday, March 23, a dog died after biting a police officer and being shot. About a week later, Karen Baldwin is saying her dog, Sinatra, was “not a vicious dog.”

Police were called to a convenience store in Salt Lake City around 3 a.m. that Sunday after receiving reports of trespassers. During that incident, Sinatra bit an officer and was later shot at several times after officers commanded for Baldwin and others to gain control of the dog.

“Based on our initial assessment of everything that we know happened in this case, our officers acted appropriately,” Brent Weisberg, communications director and public information officer for the Salt Lake City Police Department, told ABC4.com.

Baldwin said her dog wasn’t vicious, and said that many people knew him — but she also said he was very protective of her. Baldwin told ABC4.com that Sinatra was “just doing his job” to protect her on March 23.

“I feel like I failed in [my job] because I didn’t protect him,” Baldwin said.

She continued: “Sinatra was not a vicious dog. You know, I have videos of him, he’s friendly, he’s playful. Everybody knows him out there,” Baldwin said.

However, according to court documents, Baldwin had been cited before (in November 2024) for a misdemeanor charge of allowing a “vicious animal to go at large.” Weisberg also told ABC4.com that Baldwin had been given a warning to keep her dog on a leash earlier in March.

Bodycam footage from that day, which was released on the day of the incident, shows Sinatra breaking free from another person who was handling him that night — barking and moving toward police. Baldwin said she doesn’t think the officer had to shoot him.

“He could have pepper sprayed him, pepper spray would have brought him down for sure,” Baldwin said.

Officers are trained to create distance between themselves and aggressive dogs during encounters with those animals. SLCPD said the officers involved followed protocol during the situation.

“When we look at this situation in its totality… our officer demonstrated a lot of restraint,” Weisberg said. “After being bitten that first time, the officer — had he feared for his safety in that moment — could have shot the dog right there.”

Weisberg said the officer who was bitten “did suffer a significant injury to a lower extremity” and it is “fortunate that officer wasn’t more critically injured.” He said officers have to make a “split-second decision” to determine the appropriate use of force in these types of situations.

Weisberg said the officer who shot Sinatra did so to protect himself and the other people at the scene, including the other officer and the other people who were at the scene.

“None of our officers ever want to be put in this type of situation,” Weisberg said. “But at the end of the day, our officers have to do everything they can to protect themselves and our community.”

Weisberg said both officers involved in the incident are dog owners, and said the situation has been hard on them as well.

“Even though our officers acted appropriately in this situation, we know the trauma and the impact for the dog owner and for the other people who witnessed the situation,” Weisberg said.

After Sinatra was shot, police said he was critically injured and was later euthanized by Salt Lake County Animal Services. SLCPD said Baldwin was given the “opportunity for a private moment to be with her dog” after evidence was collected at the scene.

Baldwin told ABC4.com that she is “heartbroken and lost” after Sinatra’s death, and said he was the only one she could count on. She told ABC4.com that she doesn’t know the person who had been holding Sinatra’s leash when he broke free, and as of March 29, neither police nor Baldwin know how the dog got free from his leash.

Background

On Sunday, March 23, officers with the Salt Lake City Police Department responded to a convenience store on North Temple Street just past 3 a.m., after receiving reports from an employee that people were trespassing.

Two officers initially responded and encountered “a large group in the parking lot,” police said. Shortly after arriving, one officer was bitten by the dog after approaching some people from the group.

After the officer was bitten, body camera footage released by police shows the officer drawing his gun and pointing it at the dog, telling the owner, “Get your f—ing dog or I’m going to shoot it.”

That officer called for backup, and another officer encountered the dog and commanded for someone to get control of it.

Bodycam footage from the scene recorded verbal commands from both officers to get control of the dog, but after the dog charged at the second officer, the officer who was originally bitten and injured fired four shots. Police did not disclose how many times the dog was hit.

The dog’s owner ran toward the dog after it had been shot, and bodycam footage shows her being knocked down and restrained. SLCPD said officers “temporarily detained her for safety and the preservation of evidence.”

ABC4.com is not sharing the unedited footage due to the graphic nature and language contained in the footage. The footage below has been edited to remove expletives and to blur out the dog after it was shot: