Angie Harmon Opens Up About the 'Unfathomable' Pain of Losing Her Dog After He Was Shot by Instacart Driver (Exclusive)

• Angie Harmon’s dog, Oliver, was shot and killed March 30 by an Instacart driver, who told Charlotte-Mecklenburg police he was acting in self-defense.
• Harmon has since filed a lawsuit against Instacart and delivery driver Christopher Anthony Reid alleging trespassing, negligence, invasion of privacy and more. The Rizzoli & Isles alum is seeking over $25,000 in damages, although the exact amount will be determined at trial.
• Here, Harmon talks to PEOPLE about the traumatic incident and why she’s taking legal action to make sure this never happens again.

More than a month ago, Angie Harmon heard a single gunshot outside her home in Charlotte, NC, while she was feeding her two squirrels upstairs.

She immediately opened the window to hear what was going on. “Oh my God. Oh my God. Did you just shoot our dog!?” she heard her daughter Avery, 18, screaming on the front lawn.

When Rizzoli & Isles The alum, 51, looked down from the second floor to see her German shepherd and beagle mix lying helpless on the front porch steps. “He was just looking at me,” Harmon remembers, sharing the heartbreak exclusively with PEOPLE.

Oliver, who Harmon and her daughters rescued from an SPCA shelter in Dallas, Texas, when he was four years old, has been their best friend and constant companion ever since. He gave them love, they took care of him. But the day before Easter, on Saturday March 30, everything changed.

Harmon ran out the front door barefoot, wearing a nightgown and jeans, and remembers yelling, “What’s going on?”

Angie Harmon.

Frazer Harrison/Getty Images

Man who killed Angie Harmon’s dog said he ‘attacked’ it, but police found no visible injuries

A few meters away, Christopher Anthony Reid, a delivery driver, stood silently after allegedly shooting their beloved dog. “We were running, screaming, crying. I remember thinking how weird it is — like, why isn’t he helping? Why is he just looking at us as entertainment?” says Harmon.

The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department learned in its investigation that after delivering food to Harmon’s residence, Reid claimed “the dog attacked him and he defended himself by firing one shot, striking and fatally wounding the dog,” according to a police statement. . . After that, according to Harmon, the driver allegedly put a gun down the front of his pants.

PEOPLE has reached out to Reid for comment.

Angie Harmon dog Oliver.

Angie Harmon/Instagram

“Yeah, I shot your dog. I shot him,” Harmon claims Reid allegedly told her at the time. She further claimed, “He just kept saying it over and over and over. He wasn’t upset. He wasn’t afraid. He wasn’t angry. He wasn’t sorry. He wasn’t helping us. He wasn’t ‘nothing. I was like, ‘What are you talking about?’ ”

Moments later, she saw Oliver bleeding on the concrete. He was shot in the back right shoulder. According to Harmon, the impact broke all five of his ribs, and the bullet went through his lung, bounced off his stomach and exited under his left arm. But the dog was still alive.

Angie Harmon shares ‘Don’t give up’ message after her dog was shot and killed by an Instacart driver

When she rushed back into the house to get towels, her youngest daughter, Emery, 15, was shaking and crying. “She was like, ‘Mom, no. Go take care of him. Help Oliver, help Oliver!'” Harmon recalled.

But as soon as Harmon tried to pick him up, she says her legs gave out. “We keep coming to get Ollie, but I couldn’t get him in the car,” she admits.

While Avery called 911, Harmon says she and her daughter picked up the dog, but both were traumatized by its physical appearance. Harmon immediately rushed Oliver to the emergency veterinary service. As doctors tried to revive him, she remained in shock on her hands and knees in the parking lot, sobbing.

Angie Harmon and her daughters, Finley, Avery and Emery.

Angie Harmon/Instagram

“I just couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t get up, I couldn’t do anything and I couldn’t help him no matter how hard I tried, I kept failing,” she says. “When I got in there, they were doing CPR on him, and they were doing it for 7 to 13 minutes. And then everything really calmed down. I was looking at him there covered in blood.”

In court documents obtained by PEOPLE, Harmon is now suing Instacart and Reid, claiming she believed she interacted with a delivery driver named “Merle” on the app, whose profile picture showed an elderly woman, while answering questions about her order before the incident. .

However, her attorney claims that Reid — whose father’s name is Merle, according to records reviewed by PEOPLE — was the one who arrived at Harmon’s property to deliver the groceries. The lawsuit alleges that “Reid impersonated Merle on the Instacart app,” and therefore Harmon “had no idea she was communicating” with Reid, who is described in the documents as a “tall and intimidating younger man.”

The suit further alleges that Harmon’s dog was “not injured” or “seriously threatened” by Reid and that he had “ample opportunity” to leave the property unharmed without shooting the dog. Harmon is suing alleging trespass, conversion, negligence, negligent supervision/hiring, invasion of privacy and negligent misrepresentation. She is seeking more than $25,000 in damages, but the exact amount will be determined at trial.

Angie Harmon says an Instacart driver shot and killed her dog during a delivery

In a statement about the incident to PEOPLE in April, Instacart noted that they have suspended the customer from the platform and are cooperating with local police in their investigation. On May 14, the company issued a further statement: “Our hearts continue to be with Ms. Harmon and her family following this distressing incident,” it said. “While we cannot comment on pending litigation, we have no tolerance for violence of any kind, and the customer’s account has been permanently deactivated from our platform.”

According to their user agreement, Instacart prohibits any violence or aggression on its platform, including the carrying of weapons. They also prohibit fraud, including sharing account information and delegating purchases and delegating responsibility to someone who does not have an active and valid customer account. Only individuals who have a valid and active customer account may shop on their platform and must be the ones accepting and shipping to customers. There are several security measures in place to prevent fraud and ensure that only active and properly verified customers have access to the platform and use it properly.

When Harmon returned home, police questioned Reid for about 45 minutes, and she says they “talked to us for about 10 minutes, and then they let him go.” She continues: “But he didn’t have a mark on him. He didn’t have a scratch; he didn’t have ripped jeans. He didn’t have puncture marks. Most importantly, he didn’t ask for help. He says Ollie assaulted him multiple times and he had to throw him out, but he didn’t didn’t even ask for a Band-Aid or an ambulance.”

Four hours later, Harmon claims Reid was allegedly delivering food to one of her neighbors, though he says he was suspended by Instacart.

Angie Harmon and Benny the dog are lying in bed.

Angie Harmon/Instagram

“It’s just unnecessary. If this man was afraid of dogs, why is he a delivery man hiding under a false identity and carrying a gun?” Harmon’s questions. “If he’s so afraid of dogs, why wouldn’t he have pepper spray, an air horn, or a stick? There’s no way this man was in such bodily danger that he needed a gun to shoot our 43-pound dog.”

When Harmon and her two daughters, Avery and Emery, later visited Oliver at the vet, he was struggling to survive. “My girls kept saying, ‘I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry,’ over and over again, and it was heartbreaking,” says Harmon.

Oliver died soon after. “Emory felt so guilty because the last thing he saw with her was her running away from him instead of coming to help. I made the girls leave the room and then I cried to him. I felt like I was going to throw up, and I did.. I was we were quiet on the road and it was all so unnecessary,” Harmon recalls.

On Mother’s Day, May 12, Harmon’s oldest daughter Finley, 20, returned from college to grieve with her family. “We’re all in therapy for PTSD. There’s no reason anyone should have to go through this, there’s no way,” says Harmon, noting that her daughters couldn’t get out of bed for a week afterward.

Her other rescued animals (two dogs, Daisy and Benny; two cats, Hazel and Moose; and three squirrels, Oscar and Emmy. Thomas — a girl — now living in the wild) also suffered from the loss. Harmon says Benny, her 8-year-old Great Dane, Mastiff and Catahoula mix, now sleeps at the foot of the bed where his best friend used to rest.

“They all miss our goofy Ollie, who wasn’t aggressive at all,” adds Harmon.

Angie Harmon with pet squirrels.

angieharmon/Instagram

“Everything just stops. It’s like even your brain stops,” she continues. “I just did a crazy cleaning of my entire home, scrubbing the floors. I installed a new alarm system. My therapist said, ‘When you’re going through trauma in your home, get rid of all the things that are unnecessary,’ and that’s exactly what I’m doing because trying to make my home feel safe again because now it’s not.”

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Although it’s hard for Harmon to deal with the grief, she says she and her girls don’t want anyone else to go through something like this. “This is terribly wrong. I feel neglected, insecure and feel like people and their pets don’t mean anything. That’s how we all feel. The fact that [Reid] he just got away with it and that Instacart is like, ‘Oh, okay, we’re going to shut down his account.’ It’s not enough,” she says.

“I’m still screaming and crying. I feel like I’m shaking. It’s hard — unimaginable — but we can’t just sit back and do nothing. We can’t just sit back and take our rebate from Instacart and say, ‘Okay, thank you.’ This is like a public announcement,” she says. “I mean, people need to know this can happen.”

Remembering the dog Oliver.

Angie Harmon/Instagram

Although the family is not yet ready for Oliver’s funeral, his ashes are preserved in an urn and his paw print is framed in their rooms as a memento of him.

“I miss him being here,” Harmon says, heartbroken. “I miss him barking. He was so talkative. We’d all get fired up. He’d be sitting there barking and we’d be like, ‘What? You hungry again?’ and that’s what I miss the most about him.”

With tears in his eyes, he adds: “The thing that annoyed us all the most is the thing I can’t live without.”

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