Lady Gaga’s dogs found safe days after heist
Woman turns in the star’s French bulldogs, taken from dog walker in a violent attack.
Police on Friday evening recovered two French bulldogs owned by Lady Gaga that were stolen by two men who shot the music superstar’s dog walker in the chest Wednesday night, a police official said.
Capt. Jonathan Tippet, who leads the Los Angeles Police Department’s Robbery-Homicide Division, said a woman walked into the department’s Olympic station with the dogs about 6 p.m. Friday. She said she believed they belonged to Gaga.
Detectives assigned to the case and representatives for Gaga went to the station and confirmed the dogs were the singer’s pets, Tippet said.
It appeared that the woman, whom Tippet would not name, was not involved in the robbery or associated with the assailants, although the captain cautioned that the investigation was still underway.
“I don’t want to get into any discussions about her or where the dogs were actually located,” Tippet said. “We’re providing very little information on this because this is an ongoing investigation and because we are also concerned about her safety.”
The dogs were stolen in a brazen attack in Hollywood. At 9:40 p.m. Wednesday, two men leaped out of a white sedan in the 1500 block of North Sierra Bonita Avenue and demanded that Gaga’s dog walker, Ryan Fischer, hand over the musician’s three French bulldogs.
“Give it up!” one of the men shouted, according to footage of the incident obtained by The Times.
“Help me!” Fischer screamed. As he struggled with the robbers, one of them shot him once in the chest. The assailants grabbed two of the three dogs and sped off in the sedan, described by the police as a Nissan Altima.
“Oh, my God. Help me!” Fischer screamed. “Help
me. I’ve been shot. I’ve been shot. Oh, my God.”
“We’re calling 911 for you!” a neighbor yelled.
“I’m bleeding out,” Fischer said.
He was taken to CedarsSinai Medical Center and is expected to survive.
Carlos Pantoja, 29, who described witnessing the shooting from his front porch and calling 911, said the assailants were clearly targeting the French bulldogs when they pulled alongside the dog walker.
“They had a motive, and they didn’t care,” he said.
Gaga called Fischer a hero and thanked him for risking his life “to fight for our family.”
The musician had offered a $500,000 reward for the dogs’ return, no questions asked. Tippet declined to discuss the reward, but he said Gaga’s representatives were in contact with the woman who had turned in the dogs, meeting with her at the Olympic station.
Detectives had yet to identify the assailants, who remained at large Friday, Tippet said.
“We’ve still got our work to do,” he noted.
Steve Soboroff, a member of the Los Angeles Police Commission, wrote on Twitter that with the musician’s French bulldogs recovered, “let’s get the same public help to find the shooter and his accomplices.”
Anyone with information about the incident is asked to call Robbery-Homicide detectives at (213) 486-6840.