A police officer shot a blind dog. The residents of Sturgeon want justice.

In a piece of small town America, where government meetings usually revolve around issues like garden waste, and where City officials and residents call each other by their first names, lives turned upside down by the saga of Teddy the Shih Tzu.

The city, which has no traffic lights, has been in turmoil in the nearly two weeks since the 13-pound dog was shot dead on May 19; the mayor resigned after initially defending the police officer. The new mayor suspended the officer. The dog’s owner filed a lawsuit in federal court, seeking more than $1 million in damages.

Some residents, including those who describe themselves as pro-police, even went so far as to call for the dissolution of their two-officer police department.

“I think until the whole police problem is solved, they should close it down,” one man said to applause during a controversial city council meeting this week.

But as outrage steadily mounts in Sturgeon and beyond, the city has declined to fire the officer, even though his actions appear to violate city code. On Thursday, city councilors launched an investigation into Myron Woodson, who will be placed on paid leave pending the outcome of that investigation, the mayor reported in a statement to The Washington Post.

Officials otherwise declined to answer questions from The Post, and the official could not be reached for comment. City ordinance requires police to confiscate strays for about a week and house and feed them “in a humane manner.”

“This whole situation should never have happened,” said Abbey Harnish, who initially Teddy with her former fiancé Nick Hunter. “It was handled completely wrong.”

The incident attracted international attention and led to a petition of 54,000 signatures on Change.org to Sturgeon. a city with the slogan “a great place to grow!” It is smaller than a square mile and is home to more churches (four) than restaurants (one). It’s the kind of place where golf carts are as common as cars and where people share their harvests in the community garden on a trust basis.

When Teddy escaped From his outdoor kennel on a sunny Sunday, the neighbor who found him posted a search for his owner on the community’s Facebook page. Pets on the run are common in Sturgeon, and some of them are “frequent flyers we all know,” says Gina Miller, Ledbetter’s daughter.

Posts about them appear on social media once or twice a week, and usually the owners are on their way there soon.

This time, however, the woman who found the lost five-year-old dog noticed that he seemed confused and at least partially blind, and she feared he might run away or hurt himself. So she called police for help. Woodson, a former corrections officer recently hired by the city, tried to catch him for several minutes. Then he fired two shots.

About an hour later, Teddy’s owner Hunter tearfully confronted Woodson. In an exchange captured on video, the officer said he shot the dog because he thought Teddy was injured and a stray.

The next day, the city posted a different statement on its Facebook page, which has 1,400 followers, saying the officer shot the dog because he feared it had rabies. The city later said it had reviewed the body camera footage and found the officer’s actions justified.

Each development made residents angrier. Tensions reached a fever pitch last weekend when Mayor Kevin Abrahamson resigned without publicly announcing a reason. The new mayor said the City Council disagreed with the ex-mayor’s apology for the shooting. The rest of the council had not seen the body camera footage until a local station released it. the statement said.

“Like you, we were equally appalled by what we saw,” wrote Mayor Seth Truesdell. “The actions of the officer involved do not reflect the values ​​and beliefs of the people of Sturgeon or the City Council.”

By Tuesday, Hunter’s lawyers had filed a civil lawsuit claiming the officer had illegally seized Hunter’s pet and that the city had failed to properly train Woodson to handle the dog. The lawsuit received support from the national Animal Legal Defense Fund, which said in a statement it would provide a grant to cover the costs.

The organization quoted James Crosby, who wrote the Justice Department’s manual on police dog encounters. After reviewing bodycam footage, Crosby said what happened to Sturgeon was possibly “the most unjustified dog shooting I have ever witnessed in my 30-plus years in law enforcement.”

Daniel Kolde, one of the lawyers who filed the lawsuit, said a previous case he litigated in the state resulted in $750,000 in compensation for the dog owner. He said more than civil penalties may be warranted in the Sturgeon case.

“We believe Officer Woodson’s actions constitute serious animal abuse and, in addition to our civil lawsuit, we urge the District Attorney to bring charges against this officer himself,” Kolde told the Post.

Neither the district attorney’s office nor the attorney general responded to inquiries about whether criminal charges were possible.

One resident, who asked not to be identified for fear of repercussions in the small town, told the Post the incident has infuriated some city officials. Others said they now go to every meeting to make sure they know what their elected officials are doing.

The night the lawsuit was filed, city councilors met for their monthly meeting. Dozens of Sturgeon residents showed up. Others came from a town 40 minutes away.

Miller arrived early to set up a table outside with a tri-fold poster of Teddy photos, a donation jar and a card for Hunter with the words “Puppy Love.”

“Run free, Teddy,” one person wrote. “You are loved and missed.”

One after another, residents sharply criticized the police and accused elected officials of a lack of control.

“This is your city,” a woman holding a “Justice for Teddy” sign told others in the crowd. “If you don’t speak up now, nothing may ever change.”

Some community members said they would rather rely on Boone County sheriff’s deputies, as other rural towns do.

“We support the Blues, except Woodson,” read a resident’s sign. “Fire him!”

At the end of Tuesday’s meeting, city officials vowed to investigate the case. Forty-eight hours later, they officially began the investigation. They said the investigation would be conducted by a third party and made public once it was completed.

But calls for the police department to be closed continued days later, even from Ledbetter, who comes from a family of police officers.

“We don’t need cops,” she said. “Not in this city.”

Teddy’s supporters said they would continue to push for further changes. Harnish, who recently moved to Iowa, hoped they would not only fire the officer but also set higher standards for the rest of the department.

“At the end of the day, nothing is going to bring me back,” she said. “But something has to be done and change has to be made, both by the city and by the police.”