Posted on 05/08/2018 8:31:38 AM PDT by Simon Green
A police officer was seen shooting a groundhog in the middle of Liberty Road in Carroll County, upsetting some onlookers.
A video posted by one woman shows the officer killing the groundhog after it charges at him.
"This just happened. And I’m soooo distraught," wrote Justyna Olkowska on Facebook.
She said she was disturbed to see "Sykesville police shooting [groundhogs] in [the] head in broad daylight."
"Like I cannot believe I just witnessed this. If you’re not an animal lover, you won’t understand my pain," she wrote. "I may be wrong and he might have been doing his job but all I kept thinking was what if my little niece and nephew were in the car with me seeing this."
The groundhog was shot by a Carroll County Sheriff's Office, confirmed the department, not the separate Sykesville Police Department.
The incident happened at about 4 p.m. Sunday, when a deputy was travelling on Liberty Road/Route 26 in the area of White Rock Road in Eldersburg, said the Sheriff's Office in a statement.
"He found that the groundhog in question was walking into the roadway, causing vehicles to stop and creating a hazard," said the Sheriff's Office. "He got out of his vehicle to assess, and as he tried to direct the groundhog off of the roadway, he realized that it was not responding as expected for an animal that was not being cornered or trapped. Believing the groundhog to be either sick or injured, the deputy then put the animal down for the public's safety."
“what if “
Sums it up
Residents. Plural. I see one sniveling snowflake boo-hooing over a dead rodent. Where are all the others in this groundswell of outrage?
-PJ
"...reasonable instructions..."
She said she was disturbed to see “Sykesville police shooting [groundhogs] in [the] head in broad daylight.”
******************
Sykesville is a rural area. Wildlife problems are a fact of life there.
What a snowflake this lady is.
I think I read that groundhogs are the only rodent that carries rabies. Reason enough.
I C&P'd the wrong headline, which was from a related story in which multiple people were upset.
And considering the paperwork involved for the discharge of a service weapon, shooting that poor critter was a really dumb idea. I’m really wondering about that officer’s fitness.
Would she prefer they do it after dark?
Groundhogs are destroyers of gardens.
Groundhogs are giant rats.
Furry rat with a short tail, and you problem is?
Head shot on a small moving target, good shooting.
LOL!! I have never been in close proximity to Polish folk,so I wouldn’t have known that. Considering their history, you wouldn’t think whacking a ground hog would register with them. Plus, if the thing actually charged the officer, he did the right thing. Every ground hog I have ever seen hunts for cover anytime somebody gets near. In my experience, that would not be normal behavior.
I had to do this once. It wasn’t pleasant. The car we were driving behind plowed a deer and being a subcompact, demolished the car. The deer was thrashing around in the ditch, bloody mayhem. I took a shotgun we were transporting and put the poor thing out of its misery. I had forgotten about this incident until I read this article and was talking about it to my wife. The deputy showed up and I told him what I did and he said “good job.”
That said, it’s a groundhog people. We used to shoot them for sport on a sod farm when we lived back west (home). They sure do cause a lot of damage, let alone one rushing you. Never saw that before.
After dark and in the leg apparently.
Raccoons certainly do; I have dealt with several -- one-on-one. They seem to be both fearless and oblivious...
That also seems to describe this groundhog's behavior...
But -- I never shoot such afflicted animals in the head; the brain needs to be kept intact for tests for rabies.
TXnMA
Why did the officer shoot to kill? Couldn't he just have wounded the groundhog?
Sounds like "excessive force" to me.
He could have just done a Bill de Blasio Mayor of NYC on him and thrown him on the ground. He would have died a week later from internal injuries.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=olbwkLUrsLY
Carroll county must have changed. Surprised someone didn’t run it over with their car.
all I kept thinking was what if my little niece and nephew were in the car with me seeing this."
Old truism.."Everything after "but" is bullsheite.
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