Posted on 10/15/2015 2:30:32 PM PDT by LibWhacker
To Protect and Serve? When Whitehill resident Andrea accidentally cut her arm on glass, her sister frantically called 911, "I need a paramedic." Columbus Police Officer Jon Thomas responded to the house where he pulled out his gun and shot toward the family's dog (which he claims ran toward him), missed, and hit Andrea's four-year-old daughter Ava in the leg, shattering her bone.
As The Columbus Dispatch reports, Andrea also revealed that the cop never apologized or asked if Ava was okay and immediately left after shooting her.
A Columbus police officer accidentally wounded a 4-year-old girl in Whitehall on Friday when he fired at a charging dog, police said.
A neighbor and the girl’s uncle identified her as Ava Ellis, who was taken to Nationwide Children’s Hospital, where police said she was in stable condition.
The officer was at a house in the 4100 block of Chandler Drive investigating a hit-and-run case about 3:10 p.m., Columbus police spokeswoman Denise Alex-Bouzounis said.
As the officer was walking from the home to his patrol car, a woman a few houses away called out to him, saying her sister and the girl’s mother, Andrea Ellis, had cut herself.
The officer was at the doorway when a dog charged at him, Alex-Bouzounis said.
The officer fired once, missing the animal but striking the girl in the right leg. It was unclear whether the girl was hit directly or by a ricochet. The officer has not been identified.
Neighbors say the officer walked back to his patrol car after the shooting.
“He seemed a little disoriented, like he was really bothered,” said Norman Jones, who called the police after hearing the shot. Columbus and Whitehall police arrived at the scene shortly afterward.
“Mommy, am I gonna die?” four-year-old Ava Ellis asked her mother.
The family created a Facebook page for Ava.
As Salon reports, her mother Andrea wrote her account of the incident in a post. She names the police officer who shot her child, Jonathan Thomas, and says that, as soon as he saw the dog, who was eight to 10 feet away from him, he fired — in the direction of her eight-year-old niece and Ava.
Officer Thomas claimed that the dog charged at him, but Andrea’s sister Brandie denies this, and says the pet was in the house when he shot at it.
Andrea also revealed that the cop never apologized or asked if the four-year-old was okay and immediately left after shooting her. Neighbors have corroborated this account. Ava’s mother wrote:
“Officer Thomas then told my sister to stop yelling at him and walked back to his vehicle. Officer Thomas never said sorry, never said it was an accident, never said that he called for help or was going to call for help, never asked if Ava was ok, and never asked if he could check on Ava. Officer Thomas went back to his vehicle and started to pull away. My neighbors have even verified that he started pulling away before any help was there. Officer Thomas shot Ava and left knowing he shot Ava and not knowing the condition she was in.”
The young girl was taken to a nearby hospital, and is in stable condition. The Inquisitr reported that Ava started school in a wheelchair, and may walk with a limp for the rest of her life... and will likely forever mistrust the police...
Prosecutions, lawsuits...I support police officers in general but when I hear these stories of cops shooting at family pets it pisses me off. Having done what he did this cop is obviously the worst of the worst.
Cops: Now shooting both your dogs and your kids.
The most important thing about this tragedy is that the policeman went home safely. I’m sure that he was even to festoon the scene with crime scene tape so that a proper investigation could be done.
White kid, who cares?
Come on, the kid could have bitten the cop. The important thing is, the cop got home safely.
Police are out of control. Looks like they have it out for little girls and dogs. What’s next? Church and school attacks?
Over the years I have come to believe the worst thing you can do is call 911. I hate to say this but it looks more true everyday.
I’m sure that “proper procedure was followed”.
But if that were my daughter that cop’s remaining days would be very, very few in number.
L
Only the picture, and not the text of the story, reveals the most important fact here: the child was white. Therefore this is completely unimportant. In fact, it may not even have actually happened. Certainly it doesn’t matter one way or the other whether it did really happen.
And of course, the other things that didn’t happen were the riots, torching the neighborhood, looting all nearby stores, setting the cop’s house on fire (since we have his name); his immediate dismissal; arrest for attempted murder, assassination of other cops on the same force, or other forces, in other states, completely unrelated to this jurisdiction, out of solidarity with little baby Ava, etc etc etc blah blah blah.
WHITE LIVES MATTER
Time to loot the city of Columbus.
Previous posts:
Family: Girl, 4, shot by officer firing at dog is recovering
Posted on 7/1/2015
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3306668/posts
Columbus police officer injures 4-year-old while shooting at dog
Columbus Dispatch
Posted on 6/20/2015,
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/3302236/posts
We have a tough, dangerous job.
Our brother cop did not get up that morning with the goal of becoming involved in an officer-involved shooting.
The dog needn’t be large to have a lethal bite —good shoot.
If you’re REALLY not up to no good you won’t mind me taking a look, right?
What, are you a hippy..?
Still mad about that ticket, 10 years ago..?
We’re just doing our jobs.
Police SOP’s are well-established —the police violated the rights of no one.
The key thing is for us to go home safely at the end of the shift.
Next time you have an emergency, just call the ACLU.
We have to make split second decisions —you’re being unfair.
Don’t paint us all with the same broad brush.
I don’t think you understand just how highly we are trained.
We’re the thin blue line, what, ya want anarchy..?
The investigation showed the police followed department procedure.
You must just be a cop hater.
Ever been a cop? Then you’re unqualified to judge us —walk a mile in our moccasins.
It’s cops vs. the bad guys, and if you’re not for us, you’re AGAINST us.
You’re asking about something that’s the subject of an ongoing investigation —no comment.
We can’t comment on topics of ongoing investigations.
New ones? Help me add to my list..!
If people don’t start getting serious this problem won’t be taken care of, and volunteering to be locked away for life away from your daughter (she did live, after all) is not getting serious.
Hang the bleeping cop.
Was the dawg a jagnormious cross between a wolf and a pit bull?
I realize cops have a tough job and never know what they are going to run into - but this shooting at dogs stuff really needs to be addressed...
It’s like if there is a dog present there is an open season to start shooting....
This one in particular is not going to end well for the Columbus PD...
Don’t the Postal Carriers carry mace?
My guess is this little girl was chasing after her dog and got shot... Bad Policing IMO.. Hell this wasn’t even a criminal 911 call...
Death penalty.
Police departments have worked out proper response scenarios for most any situation an officer is likely to encounter in the normal course of duties. I wonder what the proper response is when enter encountering family pets during a call to a home?
Lots of people do door-to-door work. I had a temporary job going door-to-door once and encountered many dogs, friendly and not so friendly. Never thought I should be able to attack, let alone shoot a homeowner’s dog.
Seems like we hear about a lot of family dogs being shot by policemen. And this case went horribly wrong.
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