"Donuts are property too and we're not responsible for donut damage."
Posted on 05/10/2011 5:26:48 PM PDT by Immerito
HOUSTON -- A southeast Houston family dog was recovering from a gunshot wound Tuesday after it was shot by a Houston police officer.
Angela Hernandez said, last week, police were responding to a report of a possible break-in at her neighbor's home and thought the thief ran into Hernandez's yard.
When the officer got to the open gate, Hernendez's 9-year-old Labrador retriever, Bruce, lunged at him, he said, so he shot the dog near its left eye.
"He was shot and he dragged himself all the way over here," Hernandez said. "He has no vision in his left eye and won't have any vision due to his injury. They're hoping it will shrivel and close, but they may have to do another surgery."
The vet said the bullet barely missed entering Bruce's skull and the dog may lose his left eye.
On Tuesday afternoon, Hernandez asked the city for help with her mounting veterinarian bills that have already reached $3,500. Bruce may need additional surgery.
Hernandez was told that the city considers a dog property, and the city is not responsible for property damage.
(Excerpt) Read more at click2houston.com ...
Hardly. No one in the military will ever see a retirement plan like what has become common for union controlled police and fire departments.
Tough choice for a police officer......But did the dog have physical contact with the officer ?
The officer’s doing his job. But the dog’s doing his job as well.......The human - and presummably rational half of this event - needs must recognize he’s the “invader” into the dog’s territory. It may be the seond such experience in a short time frame confounded by lights’ sirens, stressed human voices to which the dog is sensitive.
Too many folks are completely ignorant of dog behaviors that are ingrained. Worse a lot of “pet owners” ignorantly or intentionally manipulate a dog’s innate responses in ways creating behavorial conflicts. >PS
Reckon so!
"Donuts are property too and we're not responsible for donut damage."
Does this mean that the city considers Police Dogs as property also?
If I ever have the occasion to telephone the sheriff’s office I am going to tell them that I have a dog; he is a beagle and hasn’t a vicious bone in his body. And be forewarned: any of your deputies had better not shoot him.
No, police dogs = people; peasant’s dogs = property. The peasants need to be kept in their place, you know.
I have SECURITY DOG and BEWARE OF DOG signs on my 10 ft wrought iron fence. That is meant to warn off potential burglars and the signs are an abject lie. I have 3 Jack Russel Terrorist and a big fat lazy hound dog. I worry that police or firemen would take the signs at face value and kill my pups. The only real danger from my dogs is if a police or fireman had a sandwich in his pocket. The dogs would take him down and lick him horribly until he gave up the sandwich.
“The officer’s doing his job. “
Part of which is to observe and use logical deduction. Observation would confirm the presence of a dog in the yard. Deduction would conclude that the thief is unlikely to be in that yard because of the dog’s virtually certain reaction. The officer doesn’t get a pass on this one. He failed to observe and logically deduce based on observation, and he should be held responsible.
Houston taxpayers need to demand change of the law that states that the city is not responsible for property damage.
Government needs to remain on the hook for cases like this, not allow itself to get off scott free.
Exactly; we need LEOs to become peace officers once more.
LEOs, of necessity, have a different mindset than peace officers.
Well, thank God it was only a pitbull. What’s that you say? It was a LABRADOR? Why, that’s impossible! It’s almost as if there’s some connection between having tacit approval to shoot one breed of dog, and shooting dogs indiscriminately!
I have a spoiled rotten Jack Russel and a loaded SKS,anyone and i mean anyone would have a very difficult time trying to explain to me why they would have to shoot my boy on my property!
Well, if they consider dogs property does this mean they cannot pass laws that tell you what you can do with them, ie, mandatory spay/neuter? I bet not....
Bravo!!!
My sentiments exactly.
Unfortunately there is a vocal contingent of authoritarian JBT-lovers here at FR who love to show up in these threads and praise these imbeciles with badges.
This is why I consistently vote against any tax levy for the police. We need LESS cops, not more.
This is because cops are no longer public servants.
They’re just steroided-out shaved-head Geheimestaatspolizei.
but the usual suspects are out in force. From this it would appear that the dog lunged, the cop shot. Maybe bad policework, I don't know, but I wasn't there. We have a lot of instant experts here on FR and a lot of Police Haters. I really am beginning to think we have some FReepers who must have a reason to have law enforcement. I love dogs, but if a big lab lunged at me, I might consider it an attack. Who knows, that's not much info to go on. Was the dog justified? Well, yeah, it was his yard, but does that mean any human in his right mind just sits back and gets bitten? BTW lots of labs WILL BITE. At one point they were number one time they were ranked number one in bites.
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