'Aggressivly attacking': Feds go all-in defending US Marshall filmed kicking small dog

The U.S. Marshals are standing behind the decision by one of its deputies who was filmed kicking a small dog during an immigration raid.

In a statement, the Marshals claimed, "An uncontrolled, aggressive animal can hinder official duty and threaten safety."

The dog, a grey-and-white schnauzer named Yoshi, rushed out of the apartment where the Marshals were arresting one of the residents. The eight deputies came after Jaquize Henderson, the boyfriend of Emma Hollingsworth, she told Fox13 on Friday in an interview.

Marshals had an arrest warrant for Henderson and Hollingworth said they snatched him and "forced him on the ground."

A larger dog that appeared to be a brown Labrador Retriever was on hand with the team as a K9 unit.

"My dog came out running. He was like, 'What's going on?' And so the U.S. Marshal had kicked him very hard, forcefully, for no reason," she said.

The video shows Yoshi being kicked so hard that he yelped loudly. The officer was standing with his gun drawn in a bulletproof vest, along with another Marshal holding a shield next to him. According to Hollingsworth, Yoshi now has a broken rib due to the puppy kicker.

"This isn't protection — this is abuse," she wrote on Facebook with a photo of the Marshals and their larger dog. "U.S. Marshals came to our home, used unnecessary force, and kicked my dog, leaving him with a broken rib. This happened right here in our community. I'm sharing this because silence protects the wrong people. Please watch, share, and help us demand accountability."

According to the Marshals, Yoshi attacked them and was very aggressive toward their K9, ABC 24 reported. The statement conceded that the video certainly looked bad, but that Hollingsworth was told to get her dog under control.

"While the appearance of the incident is unfortunate, the deputy marshal’s action was not done with malice. It was a last-resort, split-second action taken by a law enforcement officer to control the environment and mitigate a dangerous situation. An uncontrolled, aggressive animal can hinder official duties and threaten safety," said the statement.

Hollingsworth described Yoshi as nothing more than "a little ankle-biter" up against a large man with heavy boots.

"The point was just to like get it out there, to see what's going on, actually, with the task force and the US Marshals. See what they're actually doing and what's going on. Like, how they treat animals in a sense, like a little dog, a little ankle-biter. He had big old boots on. What was he going to do? Like, literally nothing. There was no point in that," said Hollingsworth.