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Man Wants Punishment for Dog Shooting
AJC.com ^ | 01-10-03 | JOHN GEROME

Posted on 01/10/2003 11:54:17 AM PST by EBUCK

Man Wants Punishment for Dog Shooting By JOHN GEROME Associated Press Writer

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP)--A traffic stop following erroneous reports of a robbery ended in heartbreak when the family dog bounded out of the car, his tail wagging, and was shot to death by police.

Now, the dog's owner wants the police officers punished, and the officer who pulled the trigger says he's been getting death threats.

``I don't ever want to see this happen to anybody else. That's why we can't let this go away,'' said James Smoak, who owned the 1 1/2-year-old pit bull-boxer mix named Patton.

Cookeville Police Officer Eric Hall, who shot the dog, said Thursday that people are misjudging him.

``It's been very difficult, but a lot of people who've made comments don't know me,'' Hall said on WTVF-TV in Nashville. ``It's kind of taken a life of its own where people are judging without knowing all the facts.''

Smoak, a seafood salesman from Saluda, N.C., said he has contacted attorneys about the New Year's Day shooting and plans legal action.

He describes the family's ordeal as ``a nightmare we can't wake up from,'' and says he will never forget having to load the dead dog into the car for the ride home.

The incident began when Tennessee state troopers and Cookeville police stopped the Smoaks' green station wagon as they were returning from a vacation in Nashville.

Another motorist had reported seeing money flying from the vehicle as it sped down Interstate 40, and authorities feared there had been a robbery.

They later discovered that the money--about $445--was fluttering from Smoak's wallet, which he had mistakenly left on the car roof after pumping gas.

The patrol car videotape of the stop, released Wednesday by the Tennessee Highway Patrol, shows troopers ordering James and Pamela Smoak and their teenage son, Brandon, out of the car, and the three emerging with their hands up, getting on their knees and being handcuffed.

Then Patton bounds out, his tail wagging, and races toward Hall.

The video shows Hall stepping back, then firing his shotgun. Hall said he thought the dog was a pit bull and that he was about to attack him.

``I noticed that it trained in right on me; the dog's coming right at me,'' he said. ``I yelled at the dog as I was backing up. I screamed at it; it kept advancing and barking in an aggressive manner. It's unfortunate what happened after that.''

Hall, who said he has received death threats, was assigned to administrative duties pending an independent review. An internal police investigation found he didn't use excessive force.

The Tennessee Highway Patrol also concluded its troopers had probable cause to conduct the stop, though officials were still trying to determine how the Smoaks were suspected in a robbery that never happened.

Officers recovered most of the lost money, Smoak said, and officials later apologized, but he said the apologies rang hollow.

``At the scene they told us they made a mistake and that we were free to go,'' Smoak said. ``No one was moved to say they were sorry.''

``The dog was wagging his tail,'' he said. ``It was completely trained.''

Hall said he felt terrible when he learned that the Smoaks were innocent but maintains he reacted appropriately.

``With the knowledge I had at that time, I was so limited that I felt I did what I had to do,'' Hall said.

``If you could have felt what I felt after the whole incident was over,'' he said, ``I thought, 'Oh, my goodness, how unfortunate for that family.'''


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Crime/Corruption; Extended News; Government
KEYWORDS: dogshooting; donutwatch; rdo; retribution
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To: chimera
The dogs tail was up almost vertical.

A dog trainer told me that the position of the tail is the most telling indicator of whether the dog is agressive. If it's down below the horizontal line then the dog is submissive and friendly. If it's above the horizontal line then the dog is aggressive.

The police should review their procedures, because I think almost any breed of dog would get aggressive if it's family was being arrested.

TN should probably offer the family $1000 compensation to make this go away.





101 posted on 01/10/2003 2:20:15 PM PST by DannyTN
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To: MadelineZapeezda; EBUCK
He could learn the breeds of dogs.

Plus the fact that few dogs other than Lassie and Rin-Tin-Tin understand the meaning of "Get Back"

102 posted on 01/10/2003 2:22:54 PM PST by Oztrich Boy
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Comment #103 Removed by Moderator

To: EBUCK
"I am a cop, and you will respect my authority!!!!
104 posted on 01/10/2003 2:25:15 PM PST by TankerKC ("In America any boy may become President and I suppose it's just one of the risks he takes." Adlai S)
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To: DannyTN
Really? $1000 to keep an aggressive, trigger-happy cop on the street? Next time, it might not be a dog at the other end of his shotgun. It might be a person. It might be a kid. It might be your kid.

Bottom line, there's too much macho and too little brains out there among the "protect and serve" (storm)troops.

105 posted on 01/10/2003 2:25:42 PM PST by chimera
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To: werwolf
That really isn't the problem. It's their training IMO. My pitt aint no killer but he prolly could be quite good with the propper training.

You take a nice (maybe a bit on the "slow side") guy that wants to help his community, give him insensitivity training, military tactics training, heathy distaste for the public training and there you go.
106 posted on 01/10/2003 2:26:32 PM PST by EBUCK (....reloading....praparing to FIRE!!!)
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To: TankerKC
Link doesn't work!!
107 posted on 01/10/2003 2:27:07 PM PST by EBUCK (....reloading....praparing to FIRE!!!)
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To: EBUCK
What the hell is a pittbull ??
108 posted on 01/10/2003 2:36:33 PM PST by kanawa (Ripping my hair out with frustration)
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To: kanawa
It's a Pit Bull with an extra "t" for extra teeth, or if you prefer, a mispelling..
109 posted on 01/10/2003 2:40:23 PM PST by EBUCK (....reloading....praparing to FIRE!!!)
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To: DannyTN; blam; Terriergal; Sabertooth; HairOfTheDog
"A dog trainer told me that the position of the tail is the most telling indicator of whether the dog is agressive. If it's down below the horizontal line then the dog is submissive and friendly. If it's above the horizontal line then the dog is aggressive."

Maybe for a particular breed, but for dogs in general, he's wrong.

Click here.

See the light brown dog? See his tail sticking straight up? He's not mad, he's happily waiting on the cheeseburger he knows is coming.

See that large(100 pds.) black lab? When she shows her temper,(and she's not afraid to do so), she maintains a low posture, the hair on the back of her neck and back stand straight up, and her long tail points straight down between her legs.

I pinged some other Freeper dog owners to come give their opinions.

"TN should probably offer the family $1000 compensation to make this go away."

I'm no law expert, but I'd be willing to bet the Smoaks will be rewarded 30 to 40 times that amount, if not more.

110 posted on 01/10/2003 2:44:15 PM PST by Vigilantcitizen
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To: Centurion2000
those airline pilots are always first at the scene and taking full responsibility themselves whenever they crash a plane.

But seriously, a professional or a truck driver doing a job is only doing a job. People make mistakes in the course of doing a job. Management's job is to weed those people out, when you weed them out you shouldn't care so much about being fair to the professional or truck driver, but fair to the potential victims when a mistake happens instead. But they are not criminals for making a mistake IMHO. Although the law more and more is treating them as criminals. Maybe criminal negligence should be only in cases where you're doing something over and over that you know causes damage. A traffic accident isn't criminal negligence unless the driver has his eyes shut or is extremely careless, etc. But people make mistakes.

Treat them as criminals and the only result will be that your system of weeding out the bad ones will become dysfunctional.
111 posted on 01/10/2003 2:46:24 PM PST by Red Jones
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To: viligantcitizen
The dog he was training for us at the time was a male yellow lab.

But the comment was made about dogs in general.
Our vet told us we had the most aggressive yellow lab he had ever seen. Labs are not known to be an aggressive breed.

So we took him to an obedience class. But it didn't work. We ended up hiring this guy. He trains police dogs for Nashville Metro. (And no, I have no ties to Metro or the police or cookville or the cop in question). But he worked wonders for that dog. (He spent 2 days training the dog and three days training the us, lol) But it worked.

I'd take his comment over your two annodotal examples anytime. Do you have any other qualifications to say the guy was wrong other than being a dog owner?
112 posted on 01/10/2003 2:58:45 PM PST by DannyTN
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To: EBUCK
Now you feel bad but how could the situation have been avoided? He should have closed the car door but I imagine that training and procedure have made the officer immune to please from the accused...

The situation could have been avoided by the police officers having the intelligence to close the door. It could also have been avoided by the police officers having better reason to suspect people of a felony before performing this kind of arrest. We trust police officers to have control of a situation, and these idiots clearly didn't have control.

Let's consider another scenario: The family begs the police officers to close the door because the dog is in the car. The police officers do just as they did in this example. The dog bounds out of the car. Instead of running towards one of the police officers, it runs way off to the side of the road and circles around the parked police cars. It is excited and then darts into traffic. Someone instinctively swerves to miss it and hits another car. Maybe one of the out-of-control cars hits the police officers and the innocent family. If they were killed, at least we'd have fewer brain-dead police officers. Maybe the wreck just kills some innocent people driving past in other cars.

Beyond Hall's inability to handle himself in a tense situation, the incident shows either stupidity in the way the police procedures are written or failure of the officers to follow good procedure. Why not close the door of a car if there is a dog inside but no other people? Were they afraid that the dog might pull a gun from under the seat and start shooting? A dog in a car may truly be a threat. However, the fact that a dog may be a threat is all the more reason for officers to close the door so that he doesn't get out of the car.

If I make a big mistake in my job and cause an out-of-control situation at my plant, I lose my job. For a police officer, his job is to protect the innocent and maintain control. Letting the dog get loose shows negligence. Conducting that kind of stop without better evidence of a crime shows negligence. Hall might be a nice guy. He's probably not even the one most at fault, but these guys must be held accountable.

WFTR
Bill

113 posted on 01/10/2003 3:03:25 PM PST by WFTR
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To: rwfromkansas
"Cops are not above the law."

The entire concern here is that they are now above the law and they know it. Anyone will bet you that since they can kill people without thinking they can certainly kill dogs and laugh later with their comrades. Fewer and fewer of them will be among those who care and more and more of them are becoming the elitist rambo types who dominate instead of serving anyone but themselves. It is how you conquer a nation and subdue it.
114 posted on 01/10/2003 3:04:12 PM PST by Spirited
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To: WFTR
Letting the dog get loose shows negligence. Conducting that kind of stop without better evidence of a crime shows negligence. Hall might be a nice guy. He's probably not even the one most at fault, but these guys must be held accountable.

Well put and agreed to.

115 posted on 01/10/2003 3:07:55 PM PST by EBUCK (....reloading....praparing to FIRE!!!)
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To: Diplomat
they lock-bite their prey. In otherwords, it or their prey must die for them to give up the bite. This is why they are often used by dog-fighting aholes.

What a load of crap. Their jaws do not lock. They are tenacious and will hold on in a fighting situation but they release on command. I have never or never would condon dog-fighting but I have studied it in order to know my enemy. During the period when dog-fighting was semi-respectable if a dog did not release at the handlers command or worse turned on his handler when the handler was separating the dogs he would be put down. The point that the media and others are either ignorant of or deliberately avoiding of is that pits and related breeds were bred to be docile to humans.
Unfortunately there are creatures that twist the pits natural tendencies and train them to be human aggressive.

116 posted on 01/10/2003 3:10:37 PM PST by kanawa (My best friend is an Amstaff)
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To: chimera
I heard the owner on a couple of shows say the dog was a bulldog. Not a mix. I don't know why this is getting reported 3-4 different ways.
117 posted on 01/10/2003 3:15:00 PM PST by gitmo (will work for big bucks)
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To: viligantcitizen
You are right... the tail position indicates confidence, not degree of aggression in a dog. And wagging indicates excitement, which is different than sweetness. Police dogs holding on a target will wag their tails.

In other words, what the tail is doing can indicate the dogs attitude and level of confidence, but it has to be looked at along with the other body language the dog is exhibiting to really try to read the dog. Your yellow dog is a confident dog who also has high natural tail set. The lab is probably more nervous, less sure of herself in new situations, from your description of her behavior.

What I saw in the video was very a much an excited dog doing what dogs do when they find themselves loose in a new place: "Adventure!".

I didn't see outright aggression, but we can't know for sure. If he was, I would be surprised. An overly aggressive dog, who would immediately lunge at any stranger they see, would not have stayed in the car some 40 seconds before jumping out. A dog knows where the open door is. He behaved a long time, with a lot going on outside.

Dammit I wish they had closed the door.

As for their damages.... unless they are awarded emotional damages, the the dog's value, any adult dog's monetary value, is next to nothing. We shall see...
118 posted on 01/10/2003 3:16:05 PM PST by HairOfTheDog
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To: Bloody Sam Roberts
What the F is wrong with these idiot reporters?

Nothing. By referring to the dog as one of those blood-thirsty pit-bulls, the media hopes to garner sympathy for this sh*thead cop.



119 posted on 01/10/2003 3:16:07 PM PST by who knows what evil? (Sign on Tennessee car: Police...child/pet on board, please don't shoot!)
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To: weikel
"Bump I wish he could see the guys hanged."

I love dogs, but it's a DOG people. When did we start caring more about dogs than people? When did someone getting killed ever generate this much outcry?

120 posted on 01/10/2003 3:17:58 PM PST by DannyTN
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