The woman said she watched the supervisor extend his baton and then strike the dog in the head. She says she had to turn her head and look away, but continued to hear the thumping as the metal club impacted its skull.

“I saw him extend the baton and he raised it up and he struck the dog in the forehead,” the witness said.

“You could just hear the dog and then the dog got quiet,” she added. The dog started yelping again when the officer returned several minutes later and poked at it with the baton, she says.

More time went by and the officer placed his boot on the dog’s head and stood on it, then stomped down, apparently attempting to crush its skull.

The officer waited several more moments and then hit it with a baton, according to the witness.

“I turned my head and said, ‘Oh my god, I can’t believe he just did that,” the witness said. “I don’t know what he was thinking.”

Eventually, the witness said she watched the officer grab the dog by a leg and drag it to the patrol car.

The couple assumed that the police department would have notified the dog owners and were nervous to talk to them about it all last week.

When the witness saw the story in the Daily Sun on Saturday, she approached police her neighbors. [sic]

The dog owner told the witness that she and her family spent all week trying to find their dog and eventually were asked to identify its body at the Coconino Humane Association. A police investigator came and told them what happened to their dog on Friday.

Police officials declined to confirm any details of the witness’ account, citing the ongoing investigation.