Exactly, if the dog wanted to attack someone, it could have done so easily and before the cop arrived on the scene.
More likely, there were students who were playing with the dog, AND students who were running away from the dog (because they are scared of dogs/large dogs), not defacto because the dog was displaying aggressive behavior.
Unfortunately, these students apparently were not told that if you run *from* a dog, you trigger its instinct to run *towards* you. This does not mean that that dog of necessity will bite, it just means that a dog’s instinct is to chase it if it runs (or moves quickly).
Moreover, dogs *sense* fear. If you are afraid of a dog that is outside, the worst thing to do is to stay outside, in its vicinity.
But none of this explains why, if this dog was behaving so aggressively, most of the students did NOT go inside to avoid the dog, even when the cop told them to do so.
Either those high school students are so deficient in the area of common sense that they do not remove themselves from an area with an aggressive animal, even when told to do so, or the animal’s aggressiveness was fabricated.
You are right... why didn’t the kids run inside if the dog was so aggressive. Our GSD loves to chase the kids. It is actually a game sort of like hide and seek. They go around one corner and he follows to guard them. It goes back and forth and they will take the lead as well. They try to catch him. If someone from the outside saw it, they may interpret it as stalking if they didn’t read his body language. Some people see a big dog (GSD, Rot, Dobie, even a lab) and assume they are mean because of their size. Personally, I have been bitten by yorkies and other small dogs but never a big one so I am different. I see a small one and sort of assume they can be an ankle biter. I see a big one and assume they aren’t unless their body language shows aggression.