Posted on 08/19/2011 5:59:26 PM PDT by Immerito
The dog's owner said he has no idea why police officers thought it was necessary to gun down his Labrador mix.
Terry Boyle, of Birmingham, said four police officers shot and killed his 5-year-old dog, Buddy, Saturday night. Boyle said he rushed home to hear the horrifying news from neighbors who said they witnessed police officers shoot his dog four times.
"From what I have been told he was not aggressive at all and he tried to get away from officers when all four approached him at the same time," said Boyle.
According to police reports, officers have responded to the home on Bowers Street four times in the past two years -- including once because Buddy had gotten into a fight with a neighbor's dog, and another time because Buddy was on the loose.
This time, police said the dog was off his owner's property and on the attack when shots were fired.
However, neighbors said Buddy was a nice dog that did not cause trouble. Witnesses said that on Saturday night Buddy was on the front porch when officers arrived. When officers approached him, he ran to the side of the house, where he was shot twice, witnesses said.
"A witness saw my dog moving," Boyle said. "He lifted his head and was trying to move still. (Police) put the noose around him and dragged him a couple of feet and then shot him twice more."
Neighbors said they were shocked that Buddy was the target of officers.
"He wasn't a neighborhood pest or a dog that was out all the time, by any means," said Boyle's neighbor Barbara McIntosh. "He was always in the house or in the yard."
Boyle said he wants answers.
"It's unbelievable to me," Boyle said. "My dog has never harmed anyone his entire life."
Police said officers were responding to a complaint that Buddy, in particular, was out on the loose. Police also said Buddy was a Rottweiler mix. Boyle said Buddy was a rescued dog, and if anything he was a Labrador-shepherd mix, not Rottweiler.
What is serious to you and I... is not what is serious to a police officer... and neither of those two is the same as what is serious to a police precinct.
We find that the safety of ourselves, our families, and our property as serious.
Police find their own safety and public order as serious.
Police precincts find revenue and good press as serious.
And asking the police to stop the precincts witless insanity is an exercise in futility, as the precincts *PAY* the policemen. And in this economy, would you jeopardize your job? Specially one with good benefits and a good retirement?
Go after the local politicians, who divvy out the funding for the precincts... and then you’ll see better policing.
It’s long past time for the police to return to Peelian principles.
I’m beginning to wonder if they are even taught in police academies any longer.
You can do your own research ~ your assertion is the cops are guilty. I have no idea about that. On the other hand, there's a proper way to handle your own dog and the video and the owner's words demonstrate he had no idea what that was.
The relevant ordinances are the leash law ordinances for the city of Burmingham, the ordinances for Oakland County (MI) and Michigan state ordinances.
Of those laws, which did the homeowner violate while his dog was on his property, on the front porch.
If you cannot establish that the homeowner was guilty of violating any local, county or state leash laws, then that is even more damnable for the officers involved, because they have no intruded on the man’s property in order to unlawfully deprive him of it.
It would be equally a crime if you intruded on any dog-owning Freeper’s property to shoot his (or her) dog(s).
There is not one law for the police and one law for the non-cop private citizen. There is one law for us all.
So, who do we believe?
I know you'd like to discount the witness provided by the cops, but the OWNER himself couldn't attest to the whereabouts of his animal at the time ~ because, according to the news video, he wasn't at home ~ that's in his own words.
BTW, there things we don't know about that dog ~ why, for instance, was it up for adoption. Did it perhaps cause trouble somewhere else? Maybe you can find out for us.
The four cops were the ones who shot the dog, completely against their own department’s written protocol. Their story is therefore, inherently biased, and was likely created because they had entered CYA mode.
The neighbor, unlike the cops, was intruding in no one’s yard and did not damage or destroy any property. Therefore, the non-criminal neighbor, who has no reason to be in CYA mode is more reliable than the cops.
Private citizens have less reason to enter CYA mode than government officials caught in wrongdoing.
How are you coming on the laws violated by the dog being on the owner’s front porch? Why do you keep blaming the private citizen and defending the government?
You judged yourself by leaving your dog home alone on the front porch all day long.
On what evidence do you claim I left my dog home alone on the front porch all day long?
Surely this is not a shameless attempt to distract from the fact that you have failed to establish that there is no evidence that the homeowner was in violation of any leash law while the dog was on its master’s porch.
But, undoubtedly, you have waited until now to produce the appropriate leash laws to demonstrate that a dog lying on the front porch is a violation of the law in Birmingham, Michigan.
Leaving a large dog alone at home on the porch with nothing to eat or drink all day long is probably not wise in an urban environment.
We'll just call it "God's Law".
I’m sorry, “It’s on the video” is not a law.
What law applicable in the city of Birmingham, in Oakland County, or in the State of Michigan did the dog violate by being on his owner’s own porch?
If the dog was breaking no law by being on his owner’s front porch, then why do you continue to defend law-defying, right-defying government employees and continue to smear law abiding non-cop private citizens?
The law applies to the way the owner takes care of his animal.
Pretty obvious to me he didn't take care of the animal at all.
But the owner would be in violation of the law if there was a law that stated that the dogs could not legally be on their owner’s front porch.
I’ll take this as your concession that there is no law that forbids dogs from being on front porches in Birmingham, Michigan, and no law that restricts where a dog can be in its own yard.
Therefore, because of this concession, you concede that the cops were in violation of a law by shooting a dog in compliance with the law.
We agree!
Oh wow, I just realized that unlicensed serial killers go through the same progression. Insightful
No, we don’t agree. Michigan has state laws regarding the keeping of livestock and other domestic animals.
And which of those laws were violated when the dog was on the front porch, on his master’s property? Cite the law.
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