Lennox, the family dog that captured hearts around the world and was at the center of a two year long legal battle, was killed Wednesday.

He was taken away from his family because he resembled a pit bull -- a breed banned in Northern Ireland under the Dangerous Dogs Act. It didn’t matter that Lennox may not have been a pit bull, his owner Caroline Barnes says he was a bull dog/Labrador mix -- or that Lennox had never attacked anyone; he was sentenced to death because that government decided that all pit bulls are dangerous. That decision alone is gravely flawed, and Lennox wasn’t even a pit bull. 

But the story of Lennox went well beyond the borders of Belfast in Northern Ireland. His death sentence and Caroline’s fight to save him grabbed the attention of hundreds of thousands of people online from around the world. Soon, Lennox’s Army was circulating petitions to save the pooch and creating Facebook groups and using Twitter to do whatever they could to save this poor dog. Protests were held in Belfast and New York. Celebrities and politicians weighed in asking for an alternative to death for Lennox. Advocates even offered to pay to move him somewhere else and care for him for life. 

But despite the effort of all of these people, Lennox was killed on Wednesday.

Tonight, on Jane Velez-Mitchell we will talk about what we can do to stop a tragedy like this from happening again. And we are going to talk about the bigger issue here. Lennox is one dog that captured the hearts of people around the world.

Jane Velez-Mitchell airs every weeknight at 7 p.m. ET on HLN.