A Florida police officer who grew up in Vacaville was in the national spotlight this past week.
Officer Marcus Montgomery was responding to a call at the Panhandle Animal Welfare Society in Fort Walton Beach, Fla., where he had adopted his dog Vader a few years ago.
“He’s a little teddy bear, but he needed a friend,” said Montgomery, who graduated from Vanden High School in 2002. He wasn’t planning on getting a dog any time soon because of his work schedule, but he wasn’t able to leave PAWS empty-handed.
Montgomery handled the police call about a disturbance with a former employee who was at PAWS. Then, the supervisor appeared with a tiny pit bull pup and handed it to Montgomery.
“He was left in a box on their doorstep overnight,” he said.
It was all over. He had to have the pup.
Montgomery and his girlfriend named him Kylo after the character in the new Star Wars film.
The PAWS staff snapped a photo of Montgomery with his newly-adopted pal and posted it on Facebook. It was shared more than 1,000 times and was then picked up by mainstream media.
“It went everywhere,” he said, adding that he was contacted by Good Morning America, among other TV news programs.
When asked why the photo became such a hit, Montgomery said he wasn’t really sure. Some people said it’s because of how cute the picture is and the way he is smiling in it. Other people have told him the picture is a great counterbalance to negative stigmas often associated with both pit bulls and police officers.
Montgomery’s father Kenneth, who still lives in Vacaville, agreed. He said people were bound to react to the image of a police officer and a pup.
“I think when you put those two things together, people just gravitate towards that,” he said.
Whatever the reasoning, Montgomery said he was surprised by the media attention.
“I wasn’t expecting it at all,” he said.
