By admin 
For two years, a North Carolina woman has sought to publicly share video footage that shows an N.C. State Highway Patrol trooper fatally shooting her two trained dogs during a car break-in on her property in 2024.
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An appeals court on Wednesday upheld a decision saying she can’t.
Lydia Nikac, a professional K-9 police dog trainer in Washington, N.C., had challenged a trial court’s 2025 decision granting her access to the trooper’s dashcam footage but barring her from publicly releasing it.
In a unanimous decision, the N.C. Court of Appeals ruled in favor of the Highway Patrol and the Pitt County Sheriff’s Office, barring her from sharing the video because it could put the troopers’ safety at risk.
“Petitioner argues the trial court ‘abused its discretion in prohibiting [her] from sharing the [Recordings] with third parties,’” the court wrote. “We disagree.”
Despite the litigation, Nikac has already posted what footage she has of the incident online, including police bodycam footage and dashboard videos. To her, it’s just another step toward seeking justice.
“It’s mine,” Nikac said of the footage. “These are my dogs. This is about me and my dogs. It’s not right.”
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The case began in October 2024 when Nikac saw a man breaking into her car at her Washington home, just over 100 miles east of Raleigh. She immediately called 911.
But after multiple minutes of waiting for authorities to arrive — and as the man grabbed handfuls of her belongings, she said — she decided to take matters into her own hands and apprehend him herself with the help of her two trained police dogs, Bonnie and Clyde.
“I said eff this,” Nikac told The News & Observer. “I’m letting the dogs out.”
With the help of her dogs, Nikac says she pulled the man out of the car, as Bonnie and Clyde “played tug-of-war” with his pants. She said she gave the command for bark and hold — telling the dogs to stand a distance away while barking at the subject to guard them in place.
That’s when a state trooper arrived, court records state, and saw the man on the ground in Nikac’s yard, with Bonnie and Clyde barking at him. Nikac allegedly asked the trooper to stay off the property until she called the dogs to her, court records say.
The trooper told Nikac to “control” her dogs, according to court documents, and drew his firearm. In dashboard footage of the interaction — which Nikac has posted online despite the court order prohibiting her from doing so — the trooper tells Nikac “If a dog comes over here I’m gonna shoot it.”
Nikac’s dog Clyde — trained to recognize officers in uniform — “trotted” in the direction of the trooper, she said. The trooper fired multiple shots at the dogs, killing both of them, court filings state.
The 2-year-old civil suit doesn’t focus on the circumstances of the shooting. It instead argues Nikac’s case for publicly sharing the trooper’s dashcam recording, which she says will help hold law enforcement accountable and support a future civil suit.
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“What people don’t understand about dogs is those are my children,” Nikac said. “That was my family. They were all I had. Bonnie was my soulmate. You don’t get to experience that often, maybe once in your life.”
Attorneys representing N.C. authorities argued disseminating videos of the shooting would impact the safety of their troopers — namely the trooper involved in the shooting — and could risk “[i]nflaming the public.”
The trial court in 2025 ruled in favor of the Highway Patrol and Sheriff’s Office, saying the release “might create a serious threat to the fair, impartial, and orderly administration of justice in connection with ongoing or potential criminal investigations” — citing a pending case against the man who allegedly broke into Nikac’s car.
A representative for the N.C. Department of Justice — which is serving as counsel for N.C. authorities — deferred comment to the Highway Patrol, which didn’t respond to requests for comment.
In a statement to The N&O, Pitt County Sheriff Paula Dance stood by the court’s decision, which she said considered “legitimate concerns.”
“In this case, all relevant recordings were released to Ms. Nikac to pursue potential civil litigation against Highway Patrol; the court’s order simply limited their public dissemination,” Dance wrote. “The Court of Appeals affirmed this balance, recognizing that transparency and accountability must be maintained within the bounds of the law.”
Why judges upheld trial court decision
In their decision Wednesday, the appellate court judges pointed to the CLEAR statute, which regulates access to law enforcement agency recordings. It creates confidentiality protections for the videos, which are considered personnel records and not public records under N.C. law, they said.
The judges added that Nikac isn’t barred from publicly speaking about the incident, only from disseminating the recordings.
The judges also didn’t rule out future public access to the videos. In the event of future litigation regarding the shooting, the court said Nikac would have the chance to again convince the court to allow the recording to be shared publicly.
But Nikac says she won’t stop pushing for full rights to share the videos.
“They became a state trooper,” she said. “They went into law enforcement. They don’t get to control what videos get put up. You signed up for this. You’re the one with the gun, and you pulled the trigger.”
This story was originally published October 9, 2026 at 9:02 AM with the headline “NC woman told not to share video showing trooper shooting her dogs. She’s doing it anyway..”
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