No charges after maintenance worker shoots, kills 8-month-old puppy during service call, police say

ROSWELL, Ga. (WGCL/Gray News) – A family in Georgia said their 8-month-old German shepherd was wrongfully shot and killed during a maintenance service call, but police said the alleged shooter won’t face any charges.

Yordania Mejia and her family, along with their dog Luna, just moved into the Enclave at Roswell apartments a month ago. The family says the puppy was “big, but gentle.”

“[Luna] was raised with kids, and everybody knows dogs raised with kids are friendly,” Mejia said.

But a report from the Roswell Police Department tells a different story. According to the report, on May 2, a maintenance worker for the apartment complex told officers he asked the dog to be secured before he entered the unit. But he claims Luna then chased him down the stairs.

According to police, the maintenance worker used his handgun to shoot Luna “in fear for his safety.”

Police said there are no pending charges and that nothing criminal took place.

“He was doing self-defense?” Mejia questioned. “[But] he had not been [bitten], he wasn’t scratched, his clothes were not torn apart.”

Mejia argues she should have gotten a heads up about what time maintenance would service her home, that way she could have been there.

“They have somebody walking around with a gun, that shot my dog twice,” she said. “He left her there to die.”

Mejia’s children are scarred, and the family is devastated, maintaining that Luna was just playful, not dangerous.

“You can go around and ask anybody in that neighborhood that has seen us for the month I’ve been here, how [Luna] is,” Mejia said.

Tenants claim the maintenance worker has since been fired, but property management neither confirmed to WGCL his employment status nor its policies on staff entering units armed.

“They told me they were sorry, and they had fired him. But if he was right on killing my dog, why did they fire him? That’s what I don’t understand,” Mejia said.

Property management directed WGCL to their corporate owner, First Communities. WGCL is still awaiting a statement from the company. WGCL has also attempted to contact the maintenance worker and have not heard back.

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