A YouTube video posted on Sunday has quickly gone viral on the internet, spurred in large part to its appearance on the front page of Reddit. In it, a Hawthorne, Calif. man appears to be arrested for video recording an arrest while walking his dog.

The reason the video has become so popular so quickly, however, is because of what happened next. After the man, Leon Rosby, was handcuffed, his dog, a rottweiler, proceeded to jump out the window of his car and confront the officers. At that point, the animal was shot four times, and died.

"Norwegian officer here, American officers are trigger happy and out of control. I serve with the K9 unit, and there is -nothing- in that dogs body language that poses a threat. This happens because there is no consequence to the officers involved, I hope Reddit can turn things around this time," notes Reddit user Elazarus.

Most users of Reddit and YouTube have expressed outrage at the officer's actions in shooting the dog. It does appear that such a use of force was unnecessary, especially considering that the police officers had both pepper spray and tasers on hand. One YouTube user raises another good point as well.

"Did you stop to think about why the cops were restraining the owner? Do you wonder why the cops are arresting a man for videotaping, which is a legal activity?" commented YouTube user Michael Hatfield II. "Can you give any reason why a clearly PEACEFUL individual was not given the opportunity to secure his pet before being arrested? Are you intelligent enough to see that cops use intimidation, brute force, and whatever they can get away with in order to maintain what they perceive as control?"

So far the Hawthorne Police Department has made no comment on their arrest of Rosby and the subsequent shooting of his dog. Their Facebook website soon became inundated with comments, the vast majority of which were not supportive, and was partially disabled on Monday.

Rosby has already hired a lawyer to file a lawsuit against the police department. It is believed that Rosby was detained on a charge of obstruction of justice, since he was heard yelling something while next to a police barricade that had been erected at the time. It is uncertain what the barricade, which involved a SWAT team, was for.