Thugs with Badges (whom I differentiate from actual police officers who enforce the law, respect the Constitution, and who engender the respect of the people they serve) are SOCIOPATHS.
The behavior of abusing animals is one of the hallmarks of sociopaths (along with the belief that rules don’t apply to them - they are above the law) and a fair number of these sociopaths are obviously in uniform.
http://voices.yahoo.com/10-sure-signs-dealing-sociopath-8765275.html
If police shot my dog for no apparent reason, they better hide their name tags.