{"id":330330,"date":"2026-08-26T17:44:51","date_gmt":"2026-08-26T17:44:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/330330\/"},"modified":"2026-08-26T17:44:51","modified_gmt":"2026-08-26T17:44:51","slug":"brooklyn-man-who-shot-labradoodle-was-aiming-for-man-harassing-his-girlfriend-d-a","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/330330\/","title":{"rendered":"Brooklyn man who shot Labradoodle was aiming for man harassing his girlfriend: D.A."},"content":{"rendered":"

A reckless gunman who shot and wounded<\/a> a Brooklyn woman\u2019s pet Labradoodle rushed to scene of the shooting, gun in his waistband, because someone was harassing his girlfriend, prosecutors said Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Adrian Benitez went right for his gun after his girlfriend, Roxanne, called and summoned him to 31st St. near Fifth Ave. in Greenwood Heights on Aug. 19, Assistant District Attorney Tziyona Langsam said at the 29-year-old\u2019s arraignment in Brooklyn Criminal Court early Wednesday morning.<\/p>\n

When Benitez arrived at the location around 5:45 p.m., he fired a single shot at the unknown man harassing Roxanne, but his shot went wide, bouncing off a wall, the prosecutor said.<\/p>\n

The ricochet round then punched a hole in the shoulder of Honey, a 7-year-old Labradoodle<\/a> being walked by a 64-year-old woman, Langsam said. Benitez is not licensed to carry a firearm, according to a criminal complaint.<\/p>\n

Honey yelped and started limping, and Benitez ran off, prosecutors said. The dog owner\u2019s nephew called 911, and Honey was rushed to an emergency veterinary hospital, where a doctor found out the bullet entered the Labradoodle\u2019s<\/a> shoulder and exited the armpit, Langsam said.<\/p>\n

The pooch survived, but needed surgery to remove .22-caliber bullet fragments.<\/p>\n

\"AdrianAdrian Benitez, 29, is pictured in police custody leaving the NYPD’s 72nd Precinct stationhouse in Brooklyn on Tuesday, Aug. 25, 2026. (Gardiner Anderson \/ New York Daily News)<\/p>\n

A cop identified Benitez from video footage, and police arrested him at his home Tuesday, Langsam said.<\/p>\n

Benitez is charged with attempted murder, assault, criminal possession of a weapon, reckless endangerment and aggravated cruelty to animals in the stray-bullet shooting.<\/p>\n

Judge Janice Robinson rejected Langsam\u2019s request to jail Benitez on $150,000 bail, after his lawyer pointed out that he has no criminal history, didn\u2019t flee when he learned he was under investigation, and is his infirm mother\u2019s sole caretaker.<\/p>\n

Benitez is developmentally disabled, and has myriad health issues, including type 2 diabetes, his lawyer, Abraham Younes of the Legal Aid Society, told the judge.<\/p>\n

\u201cI believe that he\u2019s not going anywhere, basically,\u201d Younes said. \u201cIf he is released at the highest level of supervision, he\u2019s gonna be taking care of his mom while understanding that if he\u2019s found guilty, he faces serious consequences. But my client wants to return to court. He wants to face this, and he doesn\u2019t want to run, and he has no reason to.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"AAn NYPD wanted poster (inset) is seen on 31st St. near 5th Ave. in Brooklyn (main photo) where a man shot a Labradoodle dog on Aug. 19. (Kerry Burke \/ New York Daily News)<\/p>\n

The judge said she believed Benitez would return to court, and placed him on supervised release. \u201cHe\u2019s a lifelong resident of this county,\u201d she said. \u201cHe didn\u2019t resist when the police came to arrest him. He didn\u2019t flee, and he has family responsibilities that make it necessary for him to remain in Kings County.\u201d<\/p>\n

Benitez\u2019s mother and girlfriend didn\u2019t respond to questions from the Daily News Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Benitez declined comment as he left court, only saying, \u201cI cant talk about it. My lawyer says I cant talk about it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A reckless gunman who shot and wounded a Brooklyn woman\u2019s pet Labradoodle rushed to scene of the shooting,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":330331,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[1271,98,8883,100,99,15815,107332,124351,124350,9,24,63,1095,5422],"class_list":["post-330330","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-brooklyn","tag-attempted-murder","tag-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn-criminal-court","tag-brooklyn-headlines","tag-brooklyn-news","tag-cruelty-to-animals","tag-developmentally-disabled","tag-dog-shooting","tag-labradoodle","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-reckless-endangerment","tag-stray-bullet"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/330330","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=330330"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/330330\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/330331"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=330330"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=330330"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=330330"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}