"cop killed my dogs and then spit in my face" -LONG
*UPDATE 1* 20 May
Riley is no longer critical as far as internal bleeding goes, she's still in very bad shape with lots of broken bones and possible/unknown spinal damage. She's awaiting a full CT, they have to take her to an actual hospital to do it. She's awake but JT can't see her since yet, every time he goes in, she tries to get up which is bad for both of them.
He's going to a hospital himself to get some psychiatric care as he feels he may be a danger to himself. He is taking this extremely hard as expected
*TLDR by ChatGPT*
Army vet friend in Portugal watched a speeding driver kill one dog and critically injure the other outside a groomer. Driver pretended to be a cop, blocked him from getting to the vet, threatened deportation, then turned out to be an ex-cop fired for corruption. One dog died. Other is barely hanging on. Legal case now building.
*FULL STORY*
That is the message I woke up to yesterday.
My friend's dogs were hit by a car outside a groomer. The driver then presented himself as a cop and threatened to arrest him while both of them lay dying in his arms.
JT is a US army vet who moved to Portugal a few years ago. He's been out of the US over a decade, no family, no real support network. His dogs are what kept him going through some genuinely dark periods. They saved his life. He found a plot of land where they can run free, has been living in an RV while slowly building his home, just wanted a simple life. My heart is breaking just writing this. Every day he sends me videos and photos of him and his dogs enjoying life, telling me to come visit.
Yesterday he took them to get groomed. A treat day. Bath, trim, then out for snacks after. He pulled up, went to drop them off, then turned back to grab one of their favorite toys from the car. In that window, a guy came flying down the road narrow road, lost control and mounted the curb at full speed. Without breaking hit both dogs right on the sidewalk and they went flying about 10 meters before hitting the ground.
When JT reached them, Belu, his boy, was coughing up blood and choking. Riley wasn't moving. He grabbed them both and sprinted to his car. Then the driver got out, identified himself as a police officer, and told JT he wasn't going anywhere. Said he was an illegal alien and if he didn't hand over his papers right then he was going to be arrested. Both of his dogs were dying in his arms and this man, badge or no badge, would not let him leave. He briefly argued that he didn't have time for this and took off towards the animal hospital.
When he arrived, this asshole was right behind. Yelling at him, telling him his fucking dogs ruined his car and that he needed his paperwork before he did anything. He was trying to prevent him from getting his dogs cared for until he had his papers. JT threw his wallet at him and he said he's going to call other officers to have him arrested and deported. During this argument, Belu began choking up blood and died.
Riley was alive but barely. Broken limbs, internal bleeding. What makes this harder is that Riley has already been through a terrible experience when she was a puppy back in 2020. Not long after JT got her, men broke into his home, took her, and ransomed her back. When he finally got her back she had a broken leg and hip. He spent close to $30,000 with over a year on her recovery. She's still a stupid happy dog, never stopped being happy. Stem cell therapy, blood filtering for infection and kidney damage, months of rehab. She came back. She's that kind of dog and he's that kind of person. He didn't have the money back then, he spent everything he had.
**Update mid-post:** JT called while I was writing this. Riley's internal swelling has stopped. They can't get a full X-ray yet. Broken paws, missing toes, something going on with her back. She's still critical. But it's the first piece of news that hasn't been devastating.
While waiting more police showed up. JT isn't fluent in Portuguese but he'd watched the officers talking amongst themselves before this. He showed his paperwork anyway. His ID had expired (bureaucratic bs)but he'd already applied for renewal and had his residency papers on him. The cop told him if he pushed this he'd ruin him, then gestured to the other officers and said they were all Silvas, like him.
The guy called him a fucking immigrant, piece of shit, etc and told him he would have him thrown in jail and deported. JT was arguing that he's the one who was speeding and his dogs were sitting on the sidewalk. He got tired of the back and forth and told them he just wanted to be left alone with his dead and dying dogs then told them all to go fuck themselves. Apparently that's illegal there. One officer stepped who was sympathetic and they left.
The next day he went to the station for witness statements. There was only one and it was his word against the cops. The people who'd witnessed the actual incident were already pulling back. He filed a complaint against the man who'd identified himself as an officer and blocked him at the scene.
That's when he found out the man had been removed from the police force five years ago for corruption. He wasn't a cop. Just a man with an expired badge who used it to stop a someone from saving his dogs. The actual police apparently don't take that kind of stuff lightly.
JT went back to the scene looking for witnesses. One of them told him the driver had left a bill at the clinic, expecting JT to pay 200 euros to fix his car. The car that killed Belu and nearly killed Riley. He found two more people willing to put it in writing what they witnessed and that this guy identified himself as a police officer. Killing a dog carries a minor traffic fine sadly. Impersonating an officer and using that to coerce someone's identification is a serious federal crime.
So that's where it stands. There's a real legal case building. Riley is still fighting. And JT is somewhere between grief and rage, staying away from his finca and his RV because that is where he built his life with them.
I'm worried about him. He's already been through hell multiple times and right now he's holding on by a thread. If Riley doesn't pull through, I genuinely fear what he will do. I'm hoping she stays as stubborn as she's always been. He needs her, they need each other.