No matter what side of this story you come down on, you can’t help but feel sympathy for this disabled vet who had made strides to overcome PTSD enough to interact in public. And now this incident has set him back a ways:
FOX NEWS – A disabled war veteran injured in Afghanistan says he was kicked out of a Georgia gun store after bringing in his service dog.
MyFoxAtlanta.com reports that Russ Murray was escorted out of Clyde’s Armory in Bogart when the shop owner allegedly accused his service dog, Ellie, of causing a disturbance.
Murray told the station that gun shop owner Andrew Clyde said Ellie was disturbing his security dog, Kit. Murray was escorted out after refusing to leave the store.
“I was just extremely hurt,” Murray told MyFoxAtlanta.com. “I have this animal to help me when I’m out and it really disturbing that a business would do that when she’s there to help me go into public.”
Clyde told the station that under the Americans With Disabilities Act, a business owner is allowed to ask a customer with a service dog to leave if the dog is being disruptive.
He said he’s also a disabled veteran and understands Murray’s needs but cannot allow his security job to be distracted to the point that it prevents her from doing her job, according to the report.
John Beasley, Murray’s attorney, told the station that businesses are required to make accommodations and could have brought the merchandise outside.
“The issue is whether or not he was accommodated for a service dog and clearly he wasn’t, and that’s a violation of the law,” Beasley told MyFoxAtlanta.com.