Angie Harmon has received an apology from the San Francisco-based Instacart delivery company after one of its “shoppers” admitted to shooting and killing her dog Oliver while dropping off groceries at her home in Charlotte, North Carolina, over the Easter weekend.
The former “Law and Order” star revealed on Instagram Monday that she and her daughters were left “traumatized and beyond devastated” by the shooting of their “beloved boy,” a German shepherd/beagle mix. Harmon said the shooting was unprovoked and wrote, “He shot our dog with my daughters & myself at home & just kept saying, ‘yeah, I shot your dog. Yeah I did.’”
In a statement provided to the Daily Mail, Instacart said that the driver involved in he shooting had been suspended.
“We were deeply saddened and disturbed to hear about this incident,” the statement read. “We have no tolerance for violence of any kind, and the shopper account was immediately suspended from our platform.”
With Instacart, people sign up to be “shoppers,” creating accounts on an app that allows them to see orders in their area and offer to go to local stores and fill the orders. Shoppers must be at least 18, legally eligible to work in the United States and have access to a reliable car and a phone that can run the Instacart app. They are paid a percentage of the order, depending on the order’s size, the driving distance and the effort involved in shopping and delivering the items.
Instacart said it has been in “direct contact” with Harmon and is cooperating with local law enforcement officials investigating the case.
On her Instagram post, Harmon shared videos and photos of a sweet-looking Oliver being petted, napping, or as a puppy. Harmon expressed dismay that the driver claimed “self-defense,” which meant that responding officers let him go. She disputed the idea that the driver was in any way threatened by Oliver. She said the driver “did not have a scratch or bite on him, nor were his pants torn.”
Harmon’s attorney, John Buric, told TMZ that Oliver and another of Harmon’s dogs were outside in the front yard when the delivery person arrived. Harmon was upstairs, putting food in a squirrel feeder, while her children were in the backyard. That’s when they heard a gunshot.
Buric told TMZ that the man was “braggadocious” after Harmon and her daughters rushed to the front yard to find Oliver lying in a pool of blood, as he repeatedly said, “Yeah, I just shot your dog.”
Harmon said on Instagram that the delivery person may have known that he wasn’t being recorded before he shot the dog, noting that her Ring security camera was charging inside at the time of the incident. “Our Ring camera was charging in the house, which he saw & then knew he wasn’t being recorded,” Harmon said. The “Rizzoli & Isles” star furthermore said that man who arrived at her home had been using a woman’s Instacart shopper account.
In an update from the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department, shared with People, officials confirmed that the Instacart driver claimed he shot the dog in self-defense. Police also said the case was closed.
“The driver told officers that a dog attacked him while he was at the residence and that he defended himself by firing a single gunshot, striking and mortally wounding the dog,” the statement said. The department’s Animal Care and Control also responded to the scene.
Harmon subsequently wrote a message directly to the delivery person in her Instagram stories, the Daily Mail reported.
“To the man who took Ollie away from us: your actions are despicable and inexcusable,” Harmon wrote. “You’ve not only robbed us of a beloved member of our family but you’ve also traumatized us beyond measure.”