Republican representative Lauren Boebert has denied killing her neighbour’s dog after a woman claimed that the “heartless” and “power hungry” Colorado congresswoman shot her pet in August.
“For the uninformed trolls: The story that was started saying I killed a neighbour’s dog is not true. I’ve never shot or killed any dog, ever,” Ms Boebert said in a tweet on Monday.
“A neighbour told the police that he shot two dogs,” she added.
Ms Boebert, a staunch supporter of firearms, came under fire after Yaritza Mendoza, a 21-year-old neighbour in Silt, Colorado, accused her of killing her two-year-old husky named Omega.
“On August 17, 2022 you took my best friend away with the ‘power’ of your gun,” Ms Mendoza claimed in a Facebook post. Her unverified claims have been refuted by local police.
The woman said she was speaking up about the incident after two months because she was “scared of the powers” she holds as a US representative of Colorado’s 3rd congressional district.
But she said she needed to “find the courage to want to publicly talk about the emotional trauma you caused me along with many others”.
Ms Mendoza accused the congresswoman of killing Omega because it had entered Ms Boebert’s property and “hurt the goats” there, adding that her dog was not “violent” but had hunting instincts like any other canine.
“I would have hoped you had the decency to let us know you had killed her. Instead you waited until I knocked on your door after hours of hearing me yell her name,” she wrote.
“I did not find out from you that you killed her. I found out from the authorities who also handed me a citation for a ‘Dog at large’ along with the devastating news. I was given a citation due to the fact that you were considering her to be ‘violent’,” she added.
Ms Mendoza said she hoped people can realise “how heartless you truly are” in the upcoming elections.
“The world is filled with corrupt power hungry people just like you. We shouldn’t be giving people like you the position of power in which you’re in. Yet unfortunately here you are.”
The Independent contacted Ms Boebert’s office for comment, and was directed to the congresswoman’s comments online.
Ms Boebert, in her tweet denying the accusation, said the dogs shot by her neighbour “were wounding and killing livestock in our neighbourhood including several of our family’s goats”.
“Again, I had nothing to do with this and I believe there is a police report that verifies the neighbour’s account of why he shot the dogs,” she added.
Garfield County sheriff’s office also denied the claim that Ms Boebert killed the dog, according to the Denver Post.
The outlet said police records show that officers have investigated the shooting of two dogs belonging to Ms Mendoza over the past year, both times because the animals were attacking Ms Boebert’s livestock.
Police spoke to Ms Boebert and a third neighbour, who has not been named, who admitted to shooting the allegedly out-of-control dogs. This neighbour has not been charged with any crime, while Ms Mendoza pleaded guilty earlier this month to possessing a “vicious animal” and failing to keep it off her neighbours’ property, the report said.
The controversial congresswoman is a far-right gun advocate who had attempted to stop the certification of the 2020 presidential election, and remains a strong election denier.
Ms Boebert is running for reelection in the upcoming midterm elections against her Democrat rival Adam Frisch.
