Posted on 05/25/2013 9:31:15 PM PDT by Altariel
On a chilly night in late February in Fishers, Ind., Patricia McConnell was taking her daughter’s 7-year-old, 20-pound terrier mix, Reese, out for a midnight potty.
Reese was harnessed and on a retractable leash, but as she bounded ahead around a corner, the dog saw a neighbor and started to bark. Unfortunately, this neighbor was Chief Deputy U.S. Marshal William “Buzz” Brown. Reese was able to bark only two times before the deputy shot the leashed dog twice.
Brown, who says he felt threatened, was two feet away from the dog when he thought she might attack him. Amazingly, Reese survived. However, because she was shot at such a close range, Reese’s front left leg and shoulder had to be removed, and her back left leg was left shattered. The vet bills reached $10,000.
Patricia McConnell said the shooting was so unexpected that she feared that if she said anything, the officer would fire at her as well. Her daughter, Deborah Twitty, told Fox59 that they live in fear of their neighbor. “I’m afraid he’s going to retaliate,” she said of the deputy.
(Excerpt) Read more at petsadviser.com ...
Your prescient logic has now convinced me the cop over-reacted. You are more thoughtful than many knee-jerk reactions on this thread. Have a good one!
But actually, this wasn’t “police” on HER property. This was off-duty neighbor cop who happened upon this dog, apparently in public (not sure).
I wish all sides here would get that straight - this was not a man acting in cop capacity, just as a person with a gun.
To me it sounds he far overdid it, cop or not.
You may be able to tell that your critical, tangential, and otherwise off-topic comments are not appreciated by many of the dog lovers who respond to Joe 6-pack’s doggy pings.
We are discussing dog-killing cops, not some thoughtless dope neglecting to scoop his dog’s poop. There are several orders of magnitude in relevance between the two.
I pray your cute little puppy never barks at a cop, seriously.
Thank you, Altariel. I was looking for that, but you beat me to it. [smiles]
I have not heard the other side of this story. And as you are well aware there always are two sides to a story.
In my 37 years of driving in city of Chicago, I had plenty of encounters with Chicago cops. Some were corrupt, some were rude, but I can’t recall a single incident when I felt threatened. So until I hear the cop’s side of this story, I will give benefit of doubt to the cop.
I have had pet dogs for 30 years as an adult, and also growing up as a kid. Dogs are animals. Many of them carry the instincts carried over from millions of years of evolution from wolves. They are pack animals. They act very sweet with people they are familiar with. They instinctively do not trust strangers.
If the cop felt the dog was about to bite him, he has every right to stop the dog by making an instant decision. You were not there and neither was I. Was it a over-reaction? Probably. But any reaction done in a couple of seconds is going to be instinctive, not thoughtful.
The point was that he thought this sounded like a negligent, careless owner, often otherwise characterized by things such as not poop-scooping, and thus reaps what she sows.
He wasn’t comparing getting shot to not scooping.
Maybe he should’ve read more, but he wasn’t being “off topic”.
LOL. The hits keep on coming.
Its the “them” versus “us” mentality.
That is because *their* dog is superior to *your* dog.
</sarc>
Seriously, the solutions are:
1) Repeal the ridiculous laws which make a police dog legally an officer, acknowledging they are legally dogs, even as they are naturally dogs.
OR
2) Consider all dogs legally equivalent to human beings.
Exactly; well trained dogs are typically gentle around children.
However, both parties should be well supervised around each other until the children and dog in question are of age and maturity to know how to interact with each other safely and respectfully.
I'm sorry but but it is only on TV where being a cop is a dangerous job. That is part of the problem. So many like to think of themselves as Seal Team Six or something. Seriously, being a taxi driver or convenience store clerk is far More likely to get one killed. In my vocation, we lost 5% of our workforce at one particular site, just last week due to serious injuries . There have been been deaths there. There will likely be more. Being a cop is safer than many things people do to make a living.
I'm not saying there are not great cops, there are but the new paramilitary Gestapo thing is attracting a very very bad element.
As for the OP, there is no excuse for this worthless POD to kill a twenty pound dog on a leash.
Free Republic is rife with people who dislike totalitarian bullies.
This is the standard to which the Father of Modern Policing (Robert Peel) dictated peace officers should be held:
1) The basic mission for which the police exist is to prevent crime and disorder.
2) The ability of the police to perform their duties is dependent upon the public approval of police actions.
3) Police must secure the willing co-operation of the public in voluntary observation of the law to be able to secure and maintain the respect of the public.
4) The degree of co-operation of the public that can be secured diminishes proportionately to the necessity of the use of physical force.
5) Police seek and preserve public favor not by catering to public opinion, but by constantly demonstrating absolute impartial service to the law.
6) Police use physical force to the extent necessary to secure observance of the law or to restore order only when the exercise of persuasion, advice, and warning is found to be insufficient.
7) Police, at all times, should maintain a relationship with the public that gives reality to the historic tradition that the police are the public and the public are the police; the police being only members of the public who are paid to give full-time attention to duties which are incumbent upon every citizen in the interests of community welfare and existence.
8) Police should always direct their action strictly towards their functions, and never appear to usurp the powers of the judiciary.
9) The test of police efficiency is the absence of crime and disorder, not the visible evidence of police action in dealing with it.
You are welcome to logically demonstrate how shooting a 20 pound dog from two feet away, with its owner close behind, was in line with these principles, if you can.
It would seem English is his second language, given that (per his page) he first came here as a foreign student years ago.
Bottom line: police have even shot leashed (or chained) dogs on their owner’s property. That has been repeatedly documented here on Free Republic.
I wouldn’t waste my time trying to explain anything to you.
So if police come onto your property should you leash your dog or not????
Well, I appreciate your concession that you cannot justify such behavior in line with Robert Peel’s principles, and I hope you will agree that a hasty return to their observance is best for all parties concerned.
If they are on a US Citizen’s property, the question is not what said citizen does about his/her dogs, the questions become: why are they on the citizen’s property, are they on the citizen’s property legally, and will they leave peaceably when told they are not to come on the citizen’s property unless they have a warrant which meets the parameters set forth in the Fourth Amendment?
Believing that the citizen should be more concerned about making sure they are handling their dogs the “right” way to avoid incurring the wrath of the government employee is not a belief in line with a Free Republic.
The government employee, in a Free Republic, should be more concerned about incurring the wrath of the Private Citizen.
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