Anne Arundel BranchPosted on 02/04/2014 5:16:16 AM PST by Ken H
Chief promises full investigation after Chesapeake Bay Retriever is shot twice in front yard
An Anne Arundel County police officer shot and killed a family's dog Saturday while investigating a burglary, officials said.
Police said the officer — a one-year veteran of the force who was not identified — was canvassing a neighborhood looking for witnesses around 4 p.m. Saturday.
When the officer went to a home in 900 block of Lombardee Circle in Glen Burnie the dog — a male Chesapeake Bay Retriever named Vern — "confronted" the officer in the front yard, police said. The officer then fired his weapon twice, killing the dog, police said.
(Excerpt) Read more at articles.baltimoresun.com ...
what a pussy
He was in his own yard, genius
The dog was on ITS property, defending its territory. The cop was an intruder.
This means that all dogs are fair game, any time, anywhere. No dog is safe.
“I don’t see in the article that the dog was on a leash, or restrained by a fence.
If dogs are allowed to run loose, bad things can happen.”
Seems to me that based on the news story, the LEO has twmperament issues. You don’t go up to the owner and state you “unloaded” on the dog. That is a clear giveaway to me of a temperament issue.
Additionally, where was shooting the dog on the use of force continuum? Did the officer attempt any non-lethal methods to warn the dog off?
Meanwhile, here in Pittsburgh, we are into a TEN DAY official mourning period (with flags at half staff) in honor of Rocco, a police dog who was stabbed to death by a deranged suspect.
Granted this dog saved the lives of three human officers from a knife-wielding maniac. But now we are seriously considering RAISING THE PENALTY for killing a police dog to actually MORE years than one might reasonably expect to get for killing a HUMAN BEING!
I mean, I love dogs too, but COME ON!
Someone needs to read the flag code. Was this ordered by the Governor?
No, by our new Mayor (who is a gentler, pudgier version of Bill DeBlasio)
Was Vern wagging his tail? I'd bet on it.
That certainly explains a lot.
Better question, why didn't the LEO retreat off of the property, like a logical person would do when confronted by a homeowners dog on the homeowner's property?
All we have to go on is the posted article.
The cop claims the dog “confronted” him. I don’t know if that’s true or not, or what exactly he meant by that. That’s for a court to decide, if the dog’s owners decide to file suit.
If the dog DID in fact go after the cop in such a way that he legitimately feared for his safety, then he may well have had some justification for defending himself.
The article states that the cop was investigating a burglary, and was canvassing the neighborhood looking for possible witnesses.
How exactly is a cop supposed to do that?
Is a cop supposed to phone each resident, or email them, or send them a registered letter to get permission to enter their property?
The obvious way is to simply walk up to the front door and knock. And guess what? That means entering the front yard of the residence.
No warrant is necessary for this, and I’m pretty sure trespassing laws don’t apply to LEOs doing their job.
Any assertion that the dog was “restrained” by being on the homeowner’s property, and was therefore free to do whatever it wanted (or what its instinct dictated) is BS.
We have no information on what sort of training the dog may have had, and the cop certainly didn’t either.
We don’t know whether there was an “invisible fence” there either.
The dog’s owners certainly weren’t exerting any “verbal restraint” on the dog because, as stated in the article, they were inside the house at the time of the shooting.
The dog’s owners were negligent by allowing the dog to be outside without actual, visible restraint, and without supervision.
If instead of a cop, a child had wandered into their yard, and the dog bit him, the owners would be responsible, not the child.
It’s a shame these people lost their pet, but they share at least part of the blame.
I am assuming that here in PA we are going to end up with a ten year minimum mandatory sentence for killing a police dog, while police meanwhile continue having carte blanche to kill your dog.
I had a job where I had to make home visits and many times at night under stressful situations. Not once was I ever afraid of being attacked by their dogs. The people, yes, but never the dogs.
They used to say they were “Peace Officers” with an emphasis on “Peace.”
Now they say they are “Law Enforcement Officers” with an emphasis on “Force.”
Get a clue. The dog was not “running loose”. The dog was on its own property. The officer was trespassing on the owner’s front yard.
Anne Arundel BranchWhich is full of reported facts, that you are choosing to igore and/or presume to be wrong.
If the dog DID in fact go after the cop in such a way that he legitimately feared for his safety, then he may well have had some justification for defending himself.
And further, IF the dog was a known felon, in the commission of a felony, and was pointing a shotgun at the officer, then yea, the cop was like totally justified, probably a hero. I wonder why that wasn't included in the article.
The article states that the cop was investigating a burglary, and was canvassing the neighborhood looking for possible witnesses. How exactly is a cop supposed to do that?
Without shooting dogs that happen to bark in their own yards. I suppose that if the home owner wouldn't answer the door, then by your reasoning the cop is justified in kicking in the door, because, "Hey, how else is the cop supposed to get his questions answered?".
> I’m curious. How do phone company, power company, cable
> company, mail delivery, etc. people manage to go to
> multiple homes each and every day without shooting dogs
> that bark at them?
Simple. A bag of dog biscuits. “Here, pooch! Good boy!”
Used to be a paperboy.
Maybe if he had used the sidewalk and rung the doorbell, the dog would not have reacted to his trespassing. We have this problem around here with leaflet-leavers walking across lawns instead of using the sidewalks; they track weeds and mud from the worst lawns onto the well-kept ones.
Excellent point. I have read that some carry treats with them for "problem" cases; but you're right; we never hear of them shooting dogs or very rarely of getting mauled by dogs.
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