Posted on 01/08/2003 10:02:50 PM PST by spetznaz
COOKEVILLE, Tennessee (CNN) -- Police video released Wednesday showed a North Carolina family kneeling and handcuffed, who shrieked as officers killed their dog -- which appeared to be playfully wagging its tail -- with a shotgun during a traffic stop.
The Smoak family was pulled over the evening of January 1 on Interstate 40 in eastern Tennessee by officers who mistakenly suspected them of a carjacking. An investigation showed James Smoak had simply left his wallet on the roof of his car at a gas station, and motorists who saw his money fly off the car as he drove away called police.
The family was driving through eastern Tennessee on their way home from a New Year's trip to Nashville. They told CNN they are in the process of retaining a lawyer and considering legal action against the Cookeville, Tennessee, Police Department and the Tennessee Highway Patrol for what happened to them and their dog.
In the video, released by the THP, officers are heard ordering the family, one by one, to get out of their car with their hands up. James Smoak and his wife, Pamela, and 17-year-old son Brandon are ordered onto their knees and handcuffed.
"What did I do?" James Smoak asks the officers.
"Sir, inside information is that you was involved in some type of robbery in Davidson County," the unidentified officer says.
Smoak and his wife protest incredulously, telling the officers that they are from South Carolina and that their mother and father-in-law are traveling in another car alongside them.
The Smoaks told CNN that as they knelt, handcuffed, they pleaded with officers to close the doors of their car so their two dogs would not escape, but the officers did not heed them.
Pamela Smoak is seen on the tape looking up at an officer, telling him slowly, "That dog is not mean. He won't hurt you."
Her husband says, "I got a dog in the car. I don't want him to jump out."
The tape then shows the Smoak's medium-size brown dog romping on the shoulder of the Interstate, its tail wagging. As the family yells, the dog, named Patton, first heads away from the road, then quickly circles back toward the family.
An officer in a blue uniform aims his shotgun at the dog and fires at its head, killing it immediately.
For several moments, all that is audible are shrieks as the family reacts to the shooting. James Smoak even stands up, but officers pull him back down.
"Y'all shot my dog! Y'all shot my dog!" James Smoak cries. "Oh my God! God Almighty!"
"You shot my dog!" screams his wife, distraught and still handcuffed. "Why'd you kill our dog?"
"Jesus, tell me, why did y'all shoot my dog?" James Smoak says.
The officers bring him to the patrol car, and the family calms down, but still they ask the officers for an explanation. One of them says Patton was "going after" the officer.
"No he wasn't, man," James Smoak says. "Y'all didn't have to kill the dog like that."
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
That's absurd, practically every state that has ever existed has had some sort of police force. You might as well say I'm allied with serial killers for drinking milk as a child.
Next time youre mugged use your cell phone to call a cop. I on the other hand will use my concealed hand gun (w/permit) and protect myself.
I totally support your right to blow away anyone who tries to mug you. But your notion that you can safely be an island unto yourself is ridiculous.
You probably have not had to shoot many muggers I suspect. But imagine if there were no prisons, how many times would you have had to? Lots more. Most of the criminals are recidivists, and many would-be recidivists are in jail. Who put them there? I think we both know the answer.
An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
How pray tell did we go from not trusting the police to get much done, to not having prisons? I'm all for prisons and hope the cops fill them up, I just don't believe they are going to "protect" me, or that the are type people I want as close friends. Some of them are fine, many I know could just as easily ended up on the other side of the law.
This thing heats up more and more in this state every day. It didn't really get traction for the first week, but now that the video has hit the airwaves things are really going wild. The governor's office is involved, the media outlets from around the state are keeping the story going, and the people of the state are livid.
At some point the beancounters will oblige the powers that be to knuckle under and say, "OK... How much do want?"
A good jury will (in effect) reply, "How much you GOT?"
If I were on the Smoak's jury the sky would be the limit.
It would cost the rulers of Tennessee so much of their cache of stolen tax plunder that fundamental changes in police recruiting and oversight would afterward proceed at light-speed in that state.
Well said and deserving of being repeated.
And don't forget how they marched the survivors out, at gunpoint, with their hands in the air.
Obviously worried that any one of them might be a time travelling terrorist or shape-shifting alien armed with a trans-dimensional cloaked energy weapon no doubt.
I hate to be a grammar-nag, but the misuse of the wordy 'lady' is a pet peeve of mine.
I'm sure you meant to say:
"...All in all no big deal, but the STUPID SLUT acted as if they had uncovered a terrorist cell making Chemical weapons next door..."
Carry on.
Dan
The 'police', as they exist today, would be utterly alien to the Founding Fathers.
I'm confident that they would have 'abolished' them, had they existed then. (which they did not)
Local law enforcement at the time of the Founding Fathers was primarily the bailiwick of the Sheriff, whose office derives from the archaic English 'Shire Reeve'.
Not equivalent to a 21st Century policeman...
Not even close.
No I didn't, although the stupid part would certainly be appropriate. Absent any evidence to the contrary I always assume women and girls are ladies. The article provided no such evidence. A slut would be someone who is sexually promiscuous, and nothing in the article indicated that the woman fit that description either. No evidence that she actually is a lady either, but as I indicated that is always my assumption.
Well then, it's clear that we're 180 degrees apart!
I NEVER 'assume' such a thing.
I always assume that a girl or a woman is just that, and no more... A girl or a woman.
The word 'lady' represents something more, something earned.
"...The article provided no such evidence. A slut would be someone who is sexually promiscuous, and nothing in the article indicated that the woman fit that description either..."
Actually this heavy emphasis on 'sexually promiscuous' is a relatively recent corruption of the word's meaning.
Traditionally, a slut was a slattern who MIGHT also be sexually active. This being noted, I'll grant you that most modern desk references will mirror the trend to poorly define 'slut' narrowly.
Most Americans under 30, however, don't have a clue what a slattern is, hence the choice of the better known word 'slut'.
"...No evidence that she actually is a lady either, but as I indicated that is always my assumption..."
'Lady' is too decorous a word to squander on a woman whose treasonous contempt for the Bill of Rights clearly indicates that she is much, much less than one.
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