On March 30, 2024, Angie Harmon and her daughters heard a single gunshot outside of their home in Charlotte, North Carolina. Per PEOPLE, an Instacart driver, Christopher Anthoney Reid, shot Oliver, the family's dog. "Yeah, I shot your dog. I shot him," Harmon alleges Reid said as she sprinted outside to see the source of all the commotion.
Harmon was upstairs when she heard her daughter, Avery, screaming from outside. "Oh my God. Oh my God. Did you just shoot our dog?!" Harmon could see Oliver, a German Shepherd and Beagle mix, lying in front of the house. Reid, the shooter, allegedly stood silently while the family panicked.
"We were running, screaming, crying. I remember thinking how weird — like, why isn't he helping? Why is he just watching us like entertainment?" Harmon told PEOPLE. Per the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department, after Reid delivered the food to Harmon's residence, he claimed "the dog attacked him and that he defended himself by firing a single gunshot, striking and mortally wounding the dog."
Oliver had been shot in his back right shoulder. Allegedly, the impact broke all five of his ribs, and the bullet went through his lung, bounced off his stomach, and then exited under his left arm. One of Harmon's daughters, Avery, called 911. Harmon and her daughter lifted Oliver and drove him to a nearby emergency vet.
Angie Harmon Details The Aftermath Of Christopher Reid Shooting Her Dog, Oliver
"I just couldn't breathe. I couldn't get up, I couldn't do anything, and I couldn't help him as much as I kept trying, I kept failing," Harmon described. "When I went in there, they were doing CPR on him, and they did that for 7 to 13 minutes. And then everything just got really still. There I was watching him covered in his blood."
Harmon is now suing Instacart and Reid. She believed she was interacting with "Merle" on the app, whose profile presented as an older woman. Reid's father's name is Merle, according to Harmon's attorney. However, the lawsuit alleges "Reid was impersonating Merle on the Instacart app," and Harmon had "no idea she had been communicating [with Reid]." Allegedly, Reid was "not injured" or "seriously threatened" by Harmon's dog. He also had "ample opportunity" to leave the property unharmed without shooting the dog.
"People need to know that this is what could happen," Harmon concluded, urging others to exercise caution when utilizing delivery apps.
