“Or you can watch the video at the link...”
Watched it. And I did notice the dog he shot was not the first one that came in his direction. It was second one that was closer to the front of the car and when it hit the edge of the street its head was down and it was charging fast. The first one stopped in the grass and turned away.
What bothers me, also, is that when the first dog went toward the cop he pointed at it and shooed it away. He made it clear he wanted no part of the animal. Why didn’t the owner stop the second dog?
The second dog showed no signs of stopping when moving toward the cop. And the video didn’t display anything I could see that it was anything other than an approach that came closer to the cop.
Like I mentioned in my first entry, there are two trains of thought. One is that you shoot to injure, which most people agree is not the safe way to do it, you gamble on the best situation. If you are shooting to kill, make sure the target is killed. And that’s why there is an investigation. He was forced to commit and did so. If he was wrong, then he should be determined a possible unsafe person to handle the job. And that may be coming. But do it right. Don’t look at the tape and determine it correct.
The media has played this game before. Back when Travon Martin was killed it was noted that the shooter, George Zimmerman, arrived at the police station with no injuries to his head. Yet the report from the hospital and cops indicated he had been bandaged from Martin striking his head against the concrete and his nose was broken. In other words, the tape had been doctored by ABC as it was them that presented it to the public.
Tack that on to NBC getting caught doctoring the 911 calls, and you’ve got a whole lot of problems in what actually happened. And as it turned out, Zimmerman had been attacked and fired within Florida’s stand your ground law. So the presentation had been doctored to set him up and it failed.
Let the investigation continue. I don’t believe any of what I hear and only half of what I see.
wy69
He was not ‘forced’ to kill. He chose to. He could have kicked the dog. He could have hit the dog with his baton. He could have just scratched his ears and rubbed his belly. He had options that could have been exercised. Instead he chose what is supposed to be the last option, lethal force. And he was careless in its use, shooting down the street after the dog was first hit and tried to run.
The dog was no threat. Just wanted to sniff and play like dogs do.
Justifying poor judgement only leads to more poor judgement. This poor excuse for a cop should leave town in shame.