Dog Shooting: Always Wear a Badge

[XLFD]

We can probably all agree that shooting someone else's dog or other family pet either for no reason or for all the wrong reasons is a bad thing.  Yet, police officers routinely shoot family pets, using deadly force on animals, when no reason exists to do so.  Clearly, they have the right to defend themselves when being attacked or if attack is imminent while they are in the process of doing their jobs, but all too often they are the ones that attack, or do other unnecessary provocative behavior.  And all too often, they justify their shooting by punctuating it with tickets or other crimes charged to the pet's owner.  Here are some stories and statistics.

 

"When the deputy arrived, witnesses said the deputy walked up to the home with his gun drawn and fired two shots at Brownie, feet from where they 2-year-old boy was sitting in his stroller.

"The dog's first thought is hey you're walking up to me with a gun and the dog growls. The dog didn't lunge at him, the dog didn't do anything. The dog just growled and then he put two bullets in him," said family member Robert Gringas." 

 

Donna Hansen returned home from work to find out her dog was dead, shot and killed by a police officer. Hansen now wants justice. (Read more: http://www.northwestohio.com/news/sto...)

 

 

 

A police officer in Texas is under review for firing a bullet into the back of a 3-year-old trained therapy dog.

“This dog wasn't after him. This dog was just running up going, 'Hey what are you doing?' and they have a right to do that. This is my yard; this man should not have even been there. He could have killed my husband's best friend,” homeowner Renata Simmons told KVUE.

To make matters worse, Blase was serving a traffic warrant at the wrong address when he encountered the dog.

 

Or maybe in the process of arresting someone for the ridiculous count of 'disturbing a crime scene' simply by videotaping a police response to a robbery, they provoke that man's dog to jump out of his car window, only to be mowed down by the men assaulting his owner.  When that happens, the police quickly deny any culpability, and instead tack on more crimes to the videographer. 

In this case, six more felony counts:  two counts of  intimidating a witness, two counts of dissuading a witness from  prosecuting a crime, and two counts of making criminal threats. Not to mention being charged with one  misdemeanor count of resisting arrest

 

 

 

Every 98 minutes, a dog is shot by law enforcement. While some incidents involve callous officers too quick with the trigger, the issue is much bigger than that. The lack of repercussions, policy changes, new equipment, or apologies, demonstrate how systemic this problem is. Experts have explained in interviews how police officers are not currently offered the simple training, tools, and support they need to change this problem. 

 

Using deadly force against an aggressive dog may sometimes be advisable and proper, but the statistics are totally one sided:

 

 

So perchance police need to be trained more on handling such situations so as to not indiscriminately take a canine life.  Or for that matter other seemingly innocent non-human life like a cat, a litter of kittens, a pet pig, or even a parakeet.  Or do they ever get reprimanded, except maybe when they shoot up a Dollar General in pursuit of a squirrel. 

 

However, sometimes police officers employ dogs themselves, and grow attached to them. 

 

These police dogs are often trained to go after the bad guys who may have guns themselves, it is dangerous work for them.  They sometimes may even get confused and attack officers and get shot by them in self-defence.  But when a suspect is attacked by a police dog, and winds up killing the dog, what sort of punishment do you think they get?  In South Carolina, this one suspect got 155 years. 

To be fair, 5 years of that sentence was directly from shooting the dog, while five concurrent 30-year terms for the attempted murder charges from the six other shots he fired that night (which widely missed officers pursuing him from the scene of an armed robbery).  It still seems a bit excessive, when the dog is biting his leg in the first place, and he is effectively defending himself.  The police, however, were very upset about their canine's death, and spoke of the great loss at the trial.

 

Maybe if the police valued other people's pets a little more, and suffered similar fates for shooting innocent pets of innocent owners, I would have more sympathy for them in this case.  But my feelings are similar to this lady's:

 

 

 

[XLFD]

I noticed some of that when I was doing my research.  Police dogs were not only shot by accident by their fellow officers, or succumbed to normal instinctive acts like Maco did when he saw the deer, but I seen a few shot intentionally by their fellow police when they were mistaken for the perpetrator the dog was out to get and got attacked by 'friendly biter'.  In those situations, the officer who shot the dog didn't get a 5 year sentence, more likely a 5 week paid vacation.

[easymoney]

Most of these dogs being shot, proves one  thing the cops apparently can only hit a none moving target. They need to improve on their proficiency at a range. My God, I was at the firing range every week-end.

Have you ever noticed how in a real situation they, cops, have a complete over kill. Makes me wonder how much training they actually get?

Every time I see stuff likes this, makes me wonder how I would react, my dog happens to be my best friend, and I'm allowed to carry.