Lake City Residents Demand Answers After Multiple Dogs Allegedly Shot or Injured by City Employees

LAKE CITY, Ark. — The residents of Lake City want answers after a series of incidents that left at least three dogs dead or seriously injured, allegedly at the hands of two different Lake City employees.

The latest incident occurred just after 4:00 P.M. on December 22. A witness was in the drive-thru at Lake City Drug when he said he heard a series of gunshots ring out.

“I was at the pharmacy picking up my medication when all of a sudden I heard 5 to 6 extremely loud pops,” Thomas O’Neal described.

O’Neal said the sounds alarmed him because he thought they sounded like shots from a .22 caliber rifle, mentioning that, as a hunter, he recognized that. O’Neal also told NEA Report that it appeared other customers, and even the pharmacy staff, heard those gunshots. According to O’Neal, the sounds came from the area of a ditch between the pharmacy and Lakeside Nursing Center.

“That’s when a dog that I recognized came from the ditch that is directly southwest of the Lakeside Nursing Center,” O’Neal said. “I knew of Cujo. The dog has been staying with my neighbor [Brian Bass] on Main Street.”

Cujo is well-known around his neighborhood, and many neighbors say their children often played with him, noting that the dog never exhibited aggressive behavior, O’Neal said.

O’Neal was very emotional about what he realized happened next. He said the dog was running north of the nursing center, and he could see something red on the front of it and on its legs.

“I knew it was blood once he was about 15 feet from my vehicle, and I knew he was running home,” O’Neal recounted.

Cujo did, in fact, head for a safe place, the place where Brian Bass took care of him, fed him, and loved him. As a CNA interning at NEA Baptist while pursuing his LPN, O’Neal had medical training he used to attempt to save the wounded animal.

It was what he saw next that disturbed O’Neal the most.

“By the time I made it to Mr. Bass’ house, which only took about 30 seconds, I immediately recognized a familiar face standing in the front yard of Mr. Bass’ house – the guy who shot Cujo,” O’Neal reported.

“I saw the same man at the ditch driving that gray city truck, in the bed of the city truck was a large wire cage,” O’Neal recalled, adding he saw the same man leaving the scene where gunshots were heard while carrying a .22 caliber rifle in that city truck.

O’Neal said he immediately confronted the man, Cameron Casey, hired by Lake City as a general laborer in March 2024. Residents told NEA Report that one of Casey’s duties was to act as the city dog catcher. O’Neal described him as a white male, wearing a maroon hoodie and wader boots.

A second witness

The same description was given by another Lake City resident who spoke to NEA Report anonymously out of fear for retaliation. The second witness said she had just arrived home when she heard some popping noises and looked over to the ditch near her apartment. She said the man was calling for dogs in the ditch.

“He would whistle at them and try to lure them to him, and I’d hear the popping noises, and I said out loud, I guess loud enough where he could hear me, ‘That guy is shooting these dogs,’” the witness said she mentioned to her boyfriend as he retrieved their 3-year-old son from the car.

What bothered both of these witnesses even more was what they said Casey carried with him in the truck.

“He’s not even supposed to have a rifle, only a taser,” O’Neal said. “That’s what upset me… the fact that he admitted to me that he had a black rifle that is a .22 in the truck and pointed at the work truck he’s driving.”

Bass, who said he’d cared for Cujo since the end of July, arrived home to O’Neal’s life-saving efforts for his best friend. As O’Neal attempted to save the Jack Russell Terrier mix, Bass approached Casey and questioned him about the shooting.

According to Bass, Casey denied shooting Cujo three times.

“He said, ‘If we find out who did it, whoever it is, he’ll either get a good ass chewing or fired.’ That’s the two things he said out of his own mouth,” Bass recalled.

Bass said he feels like he let Cujo down because of what ultimately happened that day. He and O’Neal both recounted that Casey tried to pick up Cujo, grabbing him by his wounds.

Bass said that after Casey did that and Cujo got away from him, the dog hid on the front porch. Bass, not knowing the extent of the events that had taken place before he arrived home, retrieved the dog from his hiding spot on the porch.

“And I carried him to his murderer’s truck, the back of his truck, and put him in that cage, and he knew it was his murderer, but I didn’t. Had no idea,” Bass tearfully said.

Both Bass and O’Neal said that from the start of the life-saving efforts on Cujo, Casey mentioned several times that Cujo needed to be put down.

Ultimately, O’Neal was unable to save Cujo. The dog had lost blood from a gunshot wound to his chest/shoulder area and also appeared to have a graze wound on his head.

NEA Report contacted Lake City Mayor Cameron Tate. Tate said he couldn’t comment on an active investigation, but did confirm this case is in the hands of the Craighead County Sheriff’s Department.

“We didn’t want to do it ourselves,” Tate said of the investigation.

While Tate acknowledged the investigation into Cujo’s death, he did not respond to our inquiries after other Lake City pet owners reported similar situations where their dogs were injured or died after interactions with city employees.

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Other dogs

Tyler Crump said his chihuahua, Hank, had an interaction with Casey while on vacation in October.

According to Crump, he received a notification on his home security cameras that the small dog had escaped his yard. He called Lake City for help. The responding dog catcher was Cameron Casey. Crump shared a video of Casey attempting to corral Hank.

In the video, Casey appeared to snatch up the dog, at which time Casey claimed the dog bit his hand. The rest of the video is extremely disturbing as Casey is seen dropping the dog and forcefully kicking him across the yard.

Crump said that was the last time he saw Hank on his home security cameras, but he said neighbors captured him on their cameras.

“He was seen on neighbors’ cameras limping, walking slow, panting, lying down,” Crump said of those videos.

Crump said he and his family rushed home from their vacation to look for Hank, and he spent all night doing so.

According to Crump, he contacted Mayor Tate’s office to see what was happening, but didn’t receive word back from Tate until 11:30 A.M. when Tate called to tell Crump that Hank was dead.

“The dog was found a little after 7:00 that morning, but I wasn’t notified,” Crump said.

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Crump said following Hank’s death, he contacted Tate to see what consequences Casey would face.

“He promised me, when we took care of the situation with my dog, that he was going to be suspended, that he was going to be terminated or not allowed to be on that job anymore,” Crump said of his conversation with the mayor.

While Crump admitted the city paid for his dog’s cremation expenses, he said he is done being silent. His TikTok video of Casey’s actions with Hank has gone viral. Now, Crump wants Casey to face some kind of punishment.

Crump and Bass aren’t the only two people looking for change in the way Lake City employees handle animal calls.

These two incidents have Kendra Rice reflecting back on what happened to her one-year-old Golden Doodle, Titus, back in August.

Rice said she was on vacation with her family when Titus got out of her fenced-in backyard. She received a text at 6:53 A.M. saying, “Your dogs are out, and one of them has bitten me.”

According to Rice, she immediately began to call family and friends to help locate her dogs, but just 30 minutes later, there was another phone call.

During that call, Kendra received some disturbing news. “Titus has been shot. Do you want us to put him down or take him to the emergency vet?”

Ultimately, Titus survived the shooting at the hands of Lake City Police Officer Brett Pilgrim, but Rice wasn’t pleased with Pilgrim’s actions and took her complaints to Mayor Cameron Tate.

Rice requested and received the body-worn camera footage and dashboard camera from that morning. The content of those videos disturbed Rice.

Pilgrim and another first-responder made jokes and used foul language before the shooting occurred, stating he would shoot the “motherfu*ker” before making light of the fact that he was using profanity while his body cam was recording. He then said that it’s just a dog.

Shortly after Pilgrim referenced Rice’s two dogs trying to return home, Pilgrim shut off his body cam. When he turned it back on minutes later, Pilgram was bragging about being a good shot.

The footage, provided to NEA Report, shows Pilgrim contacting his police chief, who appears to ask about his body cam, which Pilgrim says was off. The chief then orders the officer to provide medical assistance to the wounded animal.

While Titus lost a lot of blood, the veterinarian was able to save his life. Except for a limp, Titus will be fine, but Rice said something has to change.

She is joining forces with other people in Lake City, calling for consequences, for change in the way city employees handle animal calls. Rice hired an attorney to get some form of justice for what happened to Titus.

Bass and Crump are still waiting to see what the outcome of their situations will be. They said Mayor Tate promised a resolution, but as of yet, neither of them has seen any consequences for Casey’s alleged actions towards their animals.

NEA Report reached out to the Craighead County Sheriff’s Office for an update on the investigation. On Monday, Chief Deputy Justin Rolland confirmed that an investigation had been opened at the request of the Lake City police chief into Casey for possible animal cruelty.

All suspects are innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.