Posted on 05/04/2007 3:47:59 PM PDT by traviskicks
STOCKTON - Hayley Bailey is not shy about showing off her boo-boos.
The little, blond 5-year-old lifted her purple floral dress to show a typical beige bandage on her leg. But under the bandage isn't your typical scrape. Under it is lodged part of a bullet.
Hayley and her mother, Kari Bailey, were wounded Tuesday when a San Joaquin County sheriff's deputy fired at the family dog, Daisy. A bullet ricocheted, breaking apart before hitting the mother and child, who were standing side by side.
The Baileys have hired a high-profile lawyer who is not ready to say whether he is planning a lawsuit against the county. For now, he has a lot of questions he wants answered.
Speaking from his office in Walnut Creek, attorney Michael Cardoza ventured the first of those.
"Why would you take a shot at a dog when a 5-year-old girl is in close proximity?" he asked.
Sheriff's Office spokesman Deputy Les Garcia said about 11 a.m., deputies knocked at the Baileys' door at 2706 Munford Ave. in east Stockton, following up on a code enforcement case.
Deputies heard what sounded like someone inside running to the back of the house, and one deputy went around to the back, Garcia said.
When Kari Bailey opened the front door, the deputy fired at her 50-pound Rottweiler-mix dog as it came running out - hitting the dog in the paw.
The shooting happened quickly, Bailey said, and the deputy was only several feet away when he fired. Kari Bailey was struck in the leg, and her daughter suffered a glancing wound to her chest, as well as the injury to her leg.
Garcia identified the deputy involved as 19-year veteran Terry Breitmaier. Garcia did not have information Wednesday about how many shots Breitmaier fired or whether he has fired his weapon outside training before.
Those in the Bailey home Tuesday give a similar account of what happened, but they don't see how the deputies' actions make sense or why deputies were there in the first place.
Kari Bailey's friend Ona Rutledge, 32, was taking some trash out back when she saw a deputy walking down the driveway.
When she walked in the back door, Rutledge said, she told Kari Bailey there were police at the house, and Bailey went to the front door."By the time I got there, she was already shot," Rutledge said.
The two said they never heard a knock at the door but say there were three children playing in the house at the time and there was another woman there visiting. And, they add, deputies then searched the home for Bailey's husband, Eddie Bailey, saying he had tried to run from them.
The 26-year-old father of two was at the house Wednesday with his wife and daughter. He said he was working in Lodi and Manteca on Tuesday as a tree trimmer, as he does six days a week.
Eddie Bailey said he was wanted on a reckless-driving charge, for which he was arrested Tuesday night while visiting his wife and daughter at the hospital. He was released shortly afterward.
Bailey has no idea why deputies would be trying so hard to find him on a traffic charge he was not trying to avoid.
"They're here so I can be cited and released?" Eddie Bailey asked. "That's petty."
Kari Bailey and Rutledge said deputies also asked about a trailer out back they said is being used in drug sales. Eddie Bailey said there's a trailer next door, not on the property he rents.
That has the family wondering if deputies came to the wrong house.
Garcia said investigators have not mentioned anything about a trailer or drug use and said the reason for the visit by deputies was code enforcement. He also said that deputies are trained to use the amount of force necessary.
"You have a split-second decision to make, and you use whatever tool you deem necessary to stop the threat," he said.
While waiting for more answers, Kari Bailey is worried about her daughter and about her dog, who is still with a veterinarian."I don't understand how cops could do that," Bailey said.
Rutledge is glad the deputies didn't arrive a little bit later.
"This is the neighborhood kid hangout," she said. In the afternoon, as many as seven or eight children come for play dates at their home, she added.
Hayley was playing outside with her cousins Wednesday, like she would any day. It was a different sight from Tuesday, however, when her aunt Deborah Martin, 42, recalled the girl screaming "I'm going to die. I'm going to die" after being hit by bullet fragments.
Paw-shaped splotches of blood that wrap around the front of the house and pocks in the door jamb and front step concrete, identified by the Baileys as bullet holes, were the only outward signs of the shooting.
The family is also wondering how Daisy, a friendly dog who submits to ballerina costumes and the pestering of toddlers, would warrant a shooting.
Garcia said the incident is still under investigation, and more information should be available by the end of the week.
The Sheriff's Office called for a multiagency investigation Tuesday, he said. Those investigations are done by teams that include investigators from the San Joaquin County District Attorney's Office.
We need to return the separation of "peace officers" and "rev'nooers". The unification of tasks corrupts both.
How much danger would that pose if one wore a metal-reinforced gauntlet on the left wrist? I would think it could be managed pretty safely.
And if you had to slash the throat of a dog whose teeth were sunk into the gauntlet I would think your justification would be far more demonstrable than if you'd shot the dog as it approached.
I guess I should have been more clear with a big bold multicolored sarcasm at the end of my comment. LOL. That just takes the fun out of it.
First off you have to realize a lot of the Paranoia inducing information as to the dangers of being a Peace Officer are propaganda.. The Union propagandizes the issue to increase their pay.. The MS Media to support gun control. On the other hand the American People have an unrealistic expectation that Peace Officers are their “Defender” they are not.. They keep the streets open for commerce, keep a lid on things thats it. They are not out there to protect any single individual and that includes little 5 year old girls..They are not Soldiers, they are not Warriors... they are public employees that have the right to go home at night.. Asking or expecting them to put their life on the line in truth (not as propaganda message for better pay) is not realistic.. It is a Job and one has a right to come home from a Job.. So this incident although unfortunate is just the way things are... Time some folks accept it.. Peace Officers are not Warriors Defenders of the Nation and it’s people.. They are public employees who have the right to strike and the right to go home after work unharmed..
Just accept it a move on..
W
25 years ago I had to shoot a 90lb dog that jumped a 6 foot fence to get at my German Shepard’s. It charged out of the dusk mouth open trying to bite..I hit it in the head with one round...end of match. I had my weapon in hand and still it was muzzle action. The officer had a dog come boiling out. I am willing to bet he had to draw and shoot. No easy feat when your scared and it is realistic he was scared. Nothing wrong at all with that. Was the dog only part of an attack? Was there someone with a shotgun in the shadow or at a window?. The media, the Unions and those in power all play up the danger of being a Police Officer making reality even worse than it is. Their constant drumbeat works on the head of Peace Officers just like the Left cheering the death of GIs wears on you till you do not care about anything or anyone.. You are going home and to hell with everyone else but those you know. For Peace Officers those they know are other Peace Officers the public they see is either perpetrator, suspect or victim. It is the psychology of that perspective that drives the life of Peace Officers. There lives for many in truth are not all peaches and cream. I know I could not/would not do it.. still it is job that has to be done.. Given they more often than not work for crooks (Politicians) It is amazing they do as well as they do.
He did not shoot the little kid she was hit by a ricochet..
It is unfortunate and he will be second guessed and should be looked at carefully but I just don’t see he did anything but be in the wrong place at the wrong time. He just got bit by “The Big Green Worm (wrong place wrong time).
We should all just be glad the little girl was not killed and cut him some slack.
W
Why should the policeman's response be any different to that of a FedEx, UPS, postman, Jehovah's Witness, Avon, or pizza delivery boy knocking on the door and being met with a " 50 pound 'Rotweiller-mix' dog" coming out? I never read of those people shooting the dog first. But for policement, it seems it's the first choice.
Carlsbad officer fatally shoots dog
What do FedEx and UPS guys do when they knock on a door and a dog comes running out? Why do I never read of them shooting a dog? Is it because there are other ways to deal with the situation than shooting first?
What do FedEx and UPS guys do in his position? Every day they knock on doors and are met with dogs trying to get out. They don't shoot. The last time the UPS man was here and my dog tried to get out, the delivery man simply put his hand down and let my dog sniff it first, then he patted him on the head and handed me the signature tablet.
BTW the way if it was so dangerous was there another policeman with him?
Or was this just routine call?
leo’s are filled with the spirit of fear. As they continue to act as “enforcers” they act unjustly. Then that spirit of fear grows, becoming stronger in time dominating their perceptions, then their lives.
Everyone and especially every creature can sense, can smell that fear. It drives events. The reactions of people and animals to them.
Peace Officers are not filled with the Spirit of Fear and thing go better for them. By seeking ways to stay Peaceable in Christs admonitions more often than not it serves to influence The People they in faith serve and the animals like dogs who also react to that sense of peace.
W
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