Columbus, OH — A four-year-old girl in the Whitehall neighborhood of Columbus, Ohio is in stable condition at a hospital after being shot by a police officer.

According to 10 TV, a police officer was responding to a call around 3pm Friday when a family in the vicinity started calling for medical help.

A woman had apparently cut herself and was in need of medical assistance.

As the officer was on his way to help an injured woman, a dog ran out from the residence. The police officer shot at the dog but missed. That bullet hit a four-year-old girl in the leg.

According to the Columbus Dispatch,

When the girl’s aunt called out to the officer, the officer walked over and Parsley returned to his house, when he heard a shot.

Neighbors say the officer walked back to his patrol car after the shooting.

“He seemed a little disoriented, like he was really bothered,” said Norman Jones, who called the police after hearing the shot.

The girl has been taken to Nationwide Children’s Hospital and is in stable condition according to police, and the other injured woman was taken to Grant Hospital.

This just another horrific case of police negligence. Why can so many other professions come into contact with dogs without shooting at them? Earlier this year, a mother was killed by an Iowa police officer when he tried to shoot her dog and missed.

In both of these cases, the perceived “threat” to the officers’ lives, the dogs, were not shot. Nor did they have to be, as the officers in both cases were not attacked. However, innocent people were shot because these cops spook a little too easily.