Mail carrier seen pepper-spraying friendly dog in Watts

LOS ANGELES — This time, the attack victim was the dog.

A U.S. Postal Service mail carrier is reported to be under fire after she was caught on video pepper-spraying a friendly dog safely behind the fence of a house in Watts.

The incident occurred on June 3 on the 1500 block of East 111th Street, reports Fox11, which aired video of the encounter. The dog is a husky named Coco.

Coco’s owner says seeing the video surveillance angered him, and he wonders if the mail carrier was having a bad day and took it out on the dog, Fox reported. He says the dog was in a lot of pain following the incident. It was taken to the vet to have its eyes checked out.

The video shows the mail carrier delivering the mail when curious Coco, who was behind the fence, approaches in a seemingly non-threatening manner. The mail carrier then takes out the pepper spray, drops it, picks it up and sprays Coco, who runs away immediately. Her deliberate conduct suggests she was not responding to an emergency.

The USPS responded to the incident with the following statement:

“On behalf of the United States Postal Service, we want to apologize to our customer. We do not condone our employees behaving in a manner which is not professional and courteous. The appropriate personnel and corrective action will be taken with regard to this incident as well as training given to all local carriers on how and when to use dog repellent.”

The carrier’s identity has not been revealed, and the USPS did not say how she was dealt with for the unprovoked spraying.