Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[RedKing]

Yeah. Unfortunately, dog behavior tends to involve running towards strangers, even if the end goal is just to sniff or give them giant wet kisses.

My 13-yr old Schnauzer-Dachshund mix is the least threatening dog in existence, but he'll run to the door and bark if there's someone there (or at least he would before he went deaf). If he's outside, he'll run across the yard towards anyone or anything coming into the yard, even if it's just to see who the hell it is.

By the same token, several years ago, we were taking him for a walk in the neighborhood when two dogs rushed out of their yard (gate had been left open by mistake), crossed the street, and bit him for no damn reason (and might have tried to take a chunk out of me or my wife if the owner hadn't showed and called them off...had been mentally prepared to break the dogs' necks if I needed to). You just can't always be sure what a dog is going to do when it rushes you.

[nenjin]

The bigger issue to me is that the cop clearly approached the situation ready to fire his weapon. Now, I don't know if I can trust all the dozens and dozens and dozens of US Highway Patrol shows out now....but the only time I see cops approach the scene with their guns drawn is when they know the suspect has a weapon or has verbally stated they hate cops.

So that's why this bothers me. We don't have enough information, but based on the information we do have, the cop was ready to use deadly force without first assessing the situation.

Because otherwise, we're basically saying it's ok for a cop to shoot someone/something in their path because they feel threatened, NOT because there is an actual threat.

[Sir Finkus]

At the scene of a crime-in-progress, I'd treat a barking dog like a guy brandishing a knife.  If he's behind a fence, you can deal with him at leisure, ask him to stand down, take the time to pull out your pepper spray, whatever.  If he's running at you, you stop him.  Also, you can legshot a person...good luck with a dog.  Also, dogs run faster than people.  You can't maneuver to put space between you and a dog.

No cop will EVER legshot a person.  If you're at the point that you're shooting at someone, you aren't shooting to wound.  You're doing it because it's a choice between your life (or another person's life) and their life.  Leg shots aren't even non-lethal.  If your femoral artery gets hit, you can bleed out pretty quickly.  There isn't "non-lethal" place to shoot someone.

A dog may be faster than a person, but you'd be shocked how quickly a person can move.  IIRC, the range that a person with a knife can cover before an officer can draw his sidearm is 21 feet.  A lot of this stuff isn't as clear cut as you seem to think it is.

[DJ]

Isn't a bit hard to control your dog when you're holding your hands up in the air?

[Urist Imiknorris]

I originally read the title as "Cat shoots a dog" and opened it because down with the canine oppressors.

Now I don't know what to think.

[The Fool]

No police officer is suppose to draw a weapon without justification. When looking into domestic disturbance calls you look for signs of violence before you react. If the person is leaving then it's likely that they aren't a threat to the other person anymore, so there should have been no reason to draw the gun. You'd stop them, but not at gunpoint. I think the officer was a bit too jumpy for his own good.

As for shooting the dog, he thought he was at the right house and a dog charged him. It's sad, but he already approached the owner with a gun, which means it would be bad to lower the gun without being sure that the guy he's pointing at isn't a threat. If he was at the right house and the real threat's dog rushed him he would have been in the right. It was miscommunication and acting a bit too hastily with his gun.

[Neonivek]

Actually here is an issue with him comming onto the scene with the weapon drawn

Should a cop need to draw his weapon he is SUPPOSED to call and wait for back up.

At least that is what I was told.

As for the dog it is VERY unfortunate and sounds like with few exceptions a dog is going to get shot if a police officer comes through the front door with a gun drawn. I cannot think of many ways around it.

[GlyphGryph]

I swear, the 8 year old was coming right for me. For all I know, he could have been a biter! So put a couple bullets in him and made sure he went down!

...

yeah.

How about you not be a terrible fucking cop, and then you don't end up killing people's loved ones? This guy did this to me, well, let's just say I myself would be dead or in jail at this point, and it would be because this dickhole has no clue how to do his fucking job.

And judging by my experience with the police, his buddies back at the station are probably patting him on the back about it, too.

In other news:
I am pretty sure that I'm gonna get killed by a cop one of these days. None of my natural heat-of-the-moment reactions are conducive to not getting shot by trigger happy cops.

[sneakey pete]

I could swear General Discussion has mandatory "lets make conclusions about an incident using little information based from a media article" thread pop up with some regularity.

fixed that for you...

[Sir Finkus]

I swear, the 8 year old was coming right for me. For all I know, he could have been a biter! So put a couple bullets in him and made sure he went down!

...

yeah.

How about you not be a terrible fucking cop, and then you don't end up killing people's loved ones? This guy did this to me, well, let's just say I myself would be dead or in jail at this point, and it would be because this dickhole has no clue how to do his fucking job.

And judging by my experience with the police, his buddies back at the station are probably patting him on the back about it, too.

In other news:
I am pretty sure that I'm gonna get killed by a cop one of these days. None of my natural heat-of-the-moment reactions are conducive to not getting shot by trigger happy cops.

8 year olds can't rip your throat out, and dogs aren't equivalent to humans.

[G-Flex]

Again, if you're responding to a maybe-violent crime in progress, and a loose dog is running at you and barking, and you only have a couple of seconds to respond or get potentially-mauled...you use whatever's in your hands to stop the dog.  If that's pepper spray, you spray the dog.  If that's a gun, you shoot the dog.

Then maybe, just maybe, the problem is that the cop was brandishing a gun without any provocation? Seriously, if cops are given pepper spray, what the hell is the point if they aren't going to use it?

[Gantolandon]

Yeah, it happens all the time. Not only with dogs. I live in an European country where the police is less trigger-happy, but mistakes on their side still happen. Recently, an anti-terrorist unit charged into an apartment where they believed a dangerous criminal lived. It has turned out that their informant had mistaken the floors and they tried to arrest two innocent people. They were both bruised and the woman has lost a tooth in the process. There was a similar case several years ago when an innocent guy had been thrown on the floor so unfortunately it damaged his spine.

In both cases the police spokesperson asserted that the officers had every right to expect a dangerous criminal there and had to act immediately, because the people they arrested didn't comply. Because it's perfectly normal that armed people are bashing their way into your apartment, screaming and pointing guns at you at 6 AM.

The problem with situations like that is that when they happen, you're basically screwed unless you (and your family members and pets) are perfectly rational and calm. If you won't comply immediately - even when you're drowsy, disoriented or scared - you are a fair game. It's absurd to demand from a civilian to act more professionally and efficiently than a trained policeman. It's even worse with the pets because they are less predictable and less people actually will give a shit about them.

[scriver]

I don't think people really understand just how dangerous even half-smallish dogs can be. Even usually friendly, well socialized dogs might become hostile if a stranger shows up and starts screaming at their "pack" and invading their "territory", and they'll charge. Not all people are good at reading canine body language either (not to mention it can be pretty ambiguous regardless in a heated moment), so it's definitely reasonable to be cautious. Like been said before, the thing the cop did wrong was approaching the scene with his gun drawn, shooting a hostile animal (and I'm gonna give him the benefit of the doubt and assume it actually showed hostility or that the cop couldn't read it) as it runs towards you is neither unexpected or unreasonable, even if it is sad.

[Sowelu]

I swear, the 8 year old was coming right for me. For all I know, he could have been a biter! So put a couple bullets in him and made sure he went down!

I like how some people seem to think that "it's coming right for me" is never a legitimate cause for concern or lethal force.  I also don't have any qualms about people making mistakes, regardless of line of work.  It happens to the best of us.  I'm not afraid of police because there's > a 99% chance that they are doing their job correctly...so they screw up sometimes, who cares?  Bad things happen, that's called life.  They work in a very stressful profession that involves an awful lot of split-second, life-or-death decisions.  Good cops vastly outweigh the bad ones, and you never hear about all the cops that make the right decisions, even in the very same split-second, life-or-death decisions..and remember, no matter how harmless it turned out to be, you DON'T KNOW ahead of time.

I trust that doctors will do their job right the vast majority of the time, too.  Society is only worse off for our lack of trust in them.  I also trust that nobody's going to hijack my plane, because living in fear sucks.  Why should I flip out about a small number of cops who, in the heat of the moment, might evaluate the situation wrong?

It's not like any people who'd do better are lining up for the job (assuming they'd do better at all).  Hell I know I wouldn't.  I'm not that chill.

This guy didn't respond to the emergency call by saying "I feel like shooting a dog today".  He was probably thinking something along the lines of "These calls are almost always routine, but who knows, maybe this is the day I'll wind up saving someone's life.  Or getting shot.  Someone pulled a gun a couple months back; it was unloaded, but it might not be next time.  Hey, is that guy going to his truck for a weapon?  He looks really tense.  I'll unholster just in JESUS FUCK ANGRY DOG."  And then he tells the guy to call off his dog.  Now, I wasn't there, so I might not've been this chill, but I like to think I'd have the sense to call my dog's name...especially if I have a dog that likes to run at people when he's running around outside the fence without a leash.

[Lord Dullard]

“Why didn't you get your dog when I told you to get your dog?" questioned Officer Griffin.
 
"I didn't know! You just came around the corner and told me to put my hands up. What am I supposed to do?” replied Paxton.
 
"But you knew your dog was back there, correct?" said Grffin.
 
“I didn't know anybody was here. I was just walking to my truck,” said Paxton.

“Why didn't you get your dog when I told you to get your dog?" questioned Officer Griffin.

What a d-bag.