DICKSON, Tenn. (WSMV) – A 1-year-old 8-point buck who was nursed back to health by a Dickson woman was shot and left to bleed to death by city police officers on Sunday, according to an incident report obtained by WSMV4.

The report states that on Sunday, officers with the Dickson Police Department responded to an “aggressive deer” call at a residence on Stonebrook Drive. The deer was observed on the back porch before he jumped the railing and ran to the front of the home.

Officers were able to nudge the animal into the backyard, “away from the other properties,” where one officer then pulled out a pistol and shot the animal, injuring it, according to police.

Police said a second shot was fired, aiming for its heart and lungs, but the bullet struck the deer’s left shoulder. The animal darted into the woods, where officers assumed it would eventually “bleed out,” according to the report.

The homeowner who reported the incident said the deer was aggressive, but the woman who helped raise him thinks differently.

Amber Lane said she was headed home when she found the deer, whom she named BeeBee, as a newborn in May 2022.

“I was on the way home one night and almost hit a large animal in the road,” Lane said.

She said she got out of the car to investigate and discovered she had hit and killed an adult deer. She almost returned to her car when she noticed a newborn fawn.

“I don’t know if maybe the impact of getting hit that put her into labor, and she had it,” Lane said. “But he was soaking wet. It had been raining. I couldn’t just leave him there, so I grabbed him up.”

Lane said she contacted several wildlife facilities since finding BeeBee but was unsuccessful. With no luck at facilities such as Montgomery Bell State Park and Walden’s Puddle, she decided to nurse BeeBee back to health on her own.

One year later, the deer she rescued from the side of the road was shot and killed.

Police said that upon arrival at the Dickson residence on Sunday, a homeowner showed officers surveillance footage of the deer lowering his head and “forcing [the homeowner] off of his front porch.”

Lane said this was how BeeBee played.

“He does it with me and my children, and he’s never hurt anybody,” Lane said. “I think maybe, possibly to somebody who’s not familiar with that, you know, he was scared and took it as being aggressive.”

After several failed attempts at wrangling the animal, police told Lane they had orders to shoot and kill him.

The incident report states police had been called for similar reports the day before. BeeBee was allegedly “chasing people and causing property damage.” Officers at the scene received word from a TWRA official, who was not able to respond to the scene physically, that he was advised to shoot the deer.

The incident report does not specifically state who gave the order to shoot the day BeeBee was killed.

“They shot him twice, but they didn’t kill him,” Lane said. “And so, that’s the whole issue, is like, they let him run off into the woods.”

BeeBee was shot once in the stomach and once in the left shoulder, according to police.

An officer at the scene said that “due to being shot twice,” the deer would likely “find a spot to bed down, where he would eventually bleed out.” The officer made his conclusion based on his experience hunting deer, according to the report.

“They were there to put him down, but all they did was injure him,” Lane said. “My whole body started shaking. Like with every shot, you know, I never wanted a single shot to happen, but I would just hope that it would just end.”

The deer fled into the woods, where Lane and her family searched for 30 minutes. Lane said officers refused to help her look for the deer once it had been shot.

“He came running towards me, and I just wrapped my arms around his neck,” Lane said. “He was just pouring blood out of his stomach.”

Lane found BeeBee with help from her family. She said he was severely injured, so she reached out to a friend, who is a hunter, to put BeeBee “out of his misery.”

“He was shot two more times in the woods,” she said. “And he ran all the way back home, and he was shot, like the final time, in our front yard in front of all of my kids and me.”

Lane believes the end situation could have happened differently.

“It was just like the way that they handled it,” Lane said. “It was not executed properly. It was careless and sloppy and just devoid of any emotion, and it shouldn’t have happened that way. I even begged them to just tranquilize him and take him to a facility.”

Tennessee law states Class 4 species, such as deer, are illegal to possess, but Lane said she didn’t own the deer, nor was he a pet. Lane claims the deer was entirely self-sufficient and “never captive.” BeeBee dawned an orange wrap around his neck that many, according to Lane, deemed a collar. She said that wasn’t the case.

“It was just to protect him from, potentially trying to protect him from, hunters,” she said. “I was just trying to keep him safe.”

WSMV4 reached out to the City of Dickson Police Department for comment but did not hear back prior to publication.

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