Edgecombe Sheriff's Deputy shoots dog while serving jury summons

The Edgecombe County Sheriff’s Office is investigating after a deputy shot a family’s dog in the face while serving a jury summons at their home.

The dog’s owner claims the shooting was unprovoked, but the sheriff says there’s more to the story.

Stephen Womble was spending Saturday afternoon in his backyard of his home in Macclesfield with his dog Luna when he heard a car horn sound in his driveway.

A deputy with the Edgecombe County Sheriff’s Office was out front.

“So I walked around the corner, me and my dog walked around the corner at the same time, and before anything got said or anything was done, he drew his gun, shot my dog,” Womble said. “My dog was shot in the face, and it all happened and occurred right here, then she took off back there and run.”

Womble claimed the dog didn’t do anything to threaten the deputy, and that the deputy didn’t tell him why he was there.

A neighbor next door claimed he witnessed the entire incident, and the dog hadn’t been aggressive.

Womble and his aunt took Luna to a vet in Wilson County, where they were able to treat her wounds, but both dog and owner have been struggling after the incident.

“It’s been rough,” Womble said. “I can’t sleep too good, she’s not sleeping too good, she can’t really eat, she can’t hardly drink any water.”

Womble told WRAL News it wasn’t until after the incident that he found out why the deputy had come to his home, but that he still didn’t understand it.

“I guess he was coming up here to give me a jury duty summons, but I’ve already been summoned in the mail and I had it already, so I was already aware,” Womble said.

WRAL News reached out to Edgecombe County Sheriff Clee Atkinson, who confirmed the deputy shot the dog, saying his office is holding an internal investigation into the shooting.

We asked if there was any body camera footage of the incident, and the sheriff said it happened so quickly that the deputy’s body cam didn’t film it.

But while he couldn’t go into details, the sheriff said the family’s story of what happened “misstates the facts” of the incident.

Atkinson also said the deputy went to the home to serve a jury summons because Womble had failed to return the one he’d gotten in the mail, and that his deputy has been receiving death threats from people in the community after the incident.

Womble told WRAL News all he wanted was help for Luna, who still needs reconstructive surgery that could cost thousands of dollars.

“I would just really love some kind of help with the bills, you know,” Womble said. “It’s not right, that dog did not deserve this. He had no right to shoot my dog.”

Neighbors are working to organize a fundraiser for Luna’s medical bills in the coming days.