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Man Shot After Shooting Police Dog: Family Outraged
Pittsburgh Tribune Review ^ | May 7, 2008 | Michael Hasch

Posted on 05/07/2008 6:09:50 AM PDT by PittsburghAfterDark

A Knoxville man shot and killed a Pittsburgh police dog Tuesday before the canine's handler returned fire, killing the man in what city police Chief Nate Harper called "an unfortunate" but justifiable action. The shooting outraged and angered the family of the 19-year-old man, Justin Jackson. He was pronounced dead by a passing paramedic almost immediately after the shooting that occurred at 6:53 p.m. in front of the UPMC facility on Arlington Avenue on the border of Knoxville and Mt. Oliver.

Harper said the dog's handler ordered the canine -- a 6-year-old German shepherd named Aulf -- to attack after Jackson pulled a gun from under his shirt. Both the officer, an eight-year-veteran Harper did not identify, and Jackson fired several shots, the chief said.

"They shot my son in the head. The officer told me, 'Our dog got shot so we shot him.' They killed my son over a dog," said Donald James Jackson of the West End.

"My 19-year-old son is lying there dead, shot in the head, execution-style. My son's brains are laying on the street. This is crazy. I'm going to do whatever I have to do, file charges against the officers, for my son. It's terrible, the mentality they have," Jackson said as he tried to comfort his wife.

"We are not going to let them get away with this!" Anna Jackson screamed. "They will pay for killing my son. They are going to pay for shooting my son over a dog!"

(Excerpt) Read more at pittsburghlive.com ...


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; News/Current Events; US: Pennsylvania
KEYWORDS: crime; deaddog; donutwatch; isthisinteresting; justadog; lawenforcement; leo; moreequalthanothers; murder; pennsylvania; peoplenotdogs; pittsburgh; policestate; workingdogs
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To: ImJustAnotherOkie

Let’s go back before that. The police sicced the dog on him after he complied with their request. Did he ask the dog to come at him?


281 posted on 05/07/2008 6:01:17 PM PDT by Gondring (I'll give up my right to die when hell freezes over my dead body!)
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To: muawiyah
No doubt if the young man had yelled "I got a gun" they'd shot him down on the spot anyway.

Yep. And many FReepers would be cheering his death and saying that his words must have been a threat.

He was put into a Catch-22.

282 posted on 05/07/2008 6:02:26 PM PDT by Gondring (I'll give up my right to die when hell freezes over my dead body!)
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To: Gondring
I didn't know that dogs could see 'color.' So that argument doesn't hold up for me. But dogs do have a keen sense of smell...and maybe Aulf was responding to the 'smell' of gun powder...maybe Jackson fired the gun very recently (remember the 'gunplay' that cops were originally responding too) and that added into Aulf 'reaction' to Jackson.
283 posted on 05/07/2008 6:05:36 PM PDT by PennsylvaniaMom (I could never 'Keep Sweet' I am a bitter Pennsylvanian)
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To: PennsylvaniaMom
Not all the guards in Abu Ghraib got cashiered, but many did. The incident was not without its successful prosecutions.

What did those guys do next in their lives?

And why do you think my questioning the status of these particular cops (and their supervisors) somehow trashes the NG?

Of course it doesn't.

284 posted on 05/07/2008 6:06:53 PM PDT by muawiyah
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To: dragnet2
The way we keep the violent crime rate low here is very simple ~ you use a gun you get a mandatory 5 years added to your term. Plus, Virginia has a remarkably liberal standard for putting folks on that last gurney ride. Although Texas gets all the fame for the numbers of thugs put down, Virginia actually leads in the percentage of thugs put down.

That's why our cops can stay in shape riding bicycles.

285 posted on 05/07/2008 6:10:11 PM PDT by muawiyah
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To: Dianna
Pulling out a gun and shooting the dog while policemen are standing nearby is not.

Of course, that's not what the chief says happened.

The gun was already out--that's the reason they are giving for siccing the dog on him.

286 posted on 05/07/2008 6:10:50 PM PDT by Gondring (I'll give up my right to die when hell freezes over my dead body!)
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To: arbooz

I’m very much in favor of only killing that which you intend to eat.


287 posted on 05/07/2008 6:11:15 PM PDT by muawiyah
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To: 70th Division
All the perp had to do is show his hands as police ordered and the dog would have never attacked. Quite simple really.

Not true. He showed his hands when requested, according to the police chief's earlier statements.

I bet he did not have a permit for the gun either

Why should a citizen be required to have a permit to carry a weapon? Or aren't we going to hear that argument this time around...?

288 posted on 05/07/2008 6:12:47 PM PDT by Gondring (I'll give up my right to die when hell freezes over my dead body!)
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To: muawiyah
I'd like to know how many of the cops on this run were part of the PA NG ~ and where did they serve ~ and did they get honorable discharges. 277 posted on Wednesday, May 07, 2008 8:49:22 PM by muawiyah

I think its pretty trashing. I think it pretty much states that you distrust/hate, whatever, anybody who puts on a uniform and protects and serves be it nationally or locally. On a conservative site you really want to defend the prisoners' of Abu Ghraib and a gang banger in one fell swoop...wow...like I said before, I never cease to be surprised here.

289 posted on 05/07/2008 6:12:53 PM PDT by PennsylvaniaMom (I could never 'Keep Sweet' I am a bitter Pennsylvanian)
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To: Gondring
I'm so happy someone sees the dilemma. Guy is out with a gun. Lord only knows why, but it's a bad neighborhood. Older man in my office used to walk his two Rottweiler's every evening near his home in NE DC (an overwhelmingly majority black community with a then growing crime problem).

He packed heat to protect his dogs from thieves.

However, to protect his pistol he stuffed it in his back waist under his jacket..

Folks in the office used to come in with great ideas of where he should relocate in the DC area where he'd be safer. He said he wasn't going to let the bums run him out.

Still, if he'd been stopped by the cops while walking two rottweilers and said "wait a minute officer I have a gun" they'd shot him on the spot.

He just never got stopped ~ at least by the cops.

290 posted on 05/07/2008 6:16:17 PM PDT by muawiyah
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To: PennsylvaniaMom
No doubt the dog was trained to "alert" on many substances ~ might be something the family's lawyers get into ~ see what those substances were, see if they were proper signals for suspicion of crime, etc.

Whatever, the lawyers trying to loot the Pittsburgh treasury are going to find something wrong with this picture.

291 posted on 05/07/2008 6:21:20 PM PDT by muawiyah
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To: Valpal1

As others here have correctly pointed out, dogs can never be real LEOs. To claim so is specious at best.

I’ve been looking for convictions under statutes that support that fallacy and am yet to find them.


292 posted on 05/07/2008 6:21:22 PM PDT by Starwolf (I rode to work today, did you?)
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To: muawiyah
You do realize the Police Chief is revising the story to meet address the questions of the critics ~ many of them here.

He'll keep doing this until he has a water-tight version that can satisfy a judge (like the guy in New York who cut the cops loose in the "bridegroom murder").

Not surprising to find they have PC like this in Pittsburgh. Just another one of the reasons why the place is slipping back into the slimepits.

I recall being part of a small group getting a tour from the mayor's office, showing off redevelopment efforts in the city. Someone asked, "when is the break-even point projected?" Um...question not understood...please restate it. "When will all this investment pay off and you'll have profits on the tax base?"

The guy looked at the questioner like he had two heads and stated that there was no projected break-even point. It was obvious that "investment" was just a throwaway term, and that the whole effort was a make-jobs program for Pittsburgh funded by taxpayers elsewhere.

293 posted on 05/07/2008 6:22:11 PM PDT by Gondring (I'll give up my right to die when hell freezes over my dead body!)
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To: muawiyah

It’s sad that the Republic has come to this, where the ordinary citizen fails to see the danger of such dilemmas—or even fails to see them in the first place!


294 posted on 05/07/2008 6:23:57 PM PDT by Gondring (I'll give up my right to die when hell freezes over my dead body!)
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To: PennsylvaniaMom
Frankly, I think you are a P*S. I seved honorably in the United States Infantry. I served for a while as support with the West German Bundesgruenzenschus (the border guards), and I never, ever developed the slightest sense of respect for MPs, Russian soldiers, or Vopos.

When I see sexual perverts sneaking into the military so they can be MPs in POW prisons where they can sexually molest prisoners, I definitely add those people to the category of those I do not respect.

Now, you may want to defend what went on at Abu Ghraib. I'm not going to join you in that. I also want Don't Ask, Don't Tell repealed, and replaced with a general prohibition on the selection of sexual deviants and perverts for military service.

Since the PA NG had some (see that word "some") involved in sexually abusing POWs I'm merely asking the question of what happened to those guys when they got cashiered. Did they show up in the Pittsburgh police or what?

It's not beyond belief that they did.

295 posted on 05/07/2008 6:26:35 PM PDT by muawiyah
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To: muawiyah
Since the PA NG had some (see that word "some")

'Some' did not appear in your original post...I would argue the semantics but since I am a P*SI don't think I need to address you anymore.

Peace. Out.

296 posted on 05/07/2008 6:33:38 PM PDT by PennsylvaniaMom (I could never 'Keep Sweet' I am a bitter Pennsylvanian)
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To: PennsylvaniaMom
I expected some consistency out of you. You were earlier unwilling to defend sexual deviancy among the leadership elite of the F(lds) and yet here you want to defend it.

You can't have that one both ways.

BTW, that was my SECOND post on the subject.

297 posted on 05/07/2008 6:38:02 PM PDT by muawiyah
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To: Starwolf
Given that attitude, I doubt any urban jury would convict anybody of killing a police dog, since they had reasonable fear of their life.

LOL. In this case, the perp won't have a day in court, but having been a lifelong resident of Pittsburgh, I can damn well guarantee the guy would have done some very long hard time for shooting a K-9 if he had somehow survived his Darwin Award moment.

298 posted on 05/07/2008 7:19:18 PM PDT by Ditto (Global Warming: The 21st Century's Snake Oil)
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To: Ditto
A dog is a dog. Some of you guys like to get down and wrestle and slobber with them ~ maybe even a little huggy-buggy stuff ~ but for the overwhelming majority of people, dogs stay on the floor, eat out of bowls, and darned well better not pee on the floor!

There's really nothing special about a working dog. They are readily replaced.

299 posted on 05/07/2008 7:23:49 PM PDT by muawiyah
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To: Gondring
What was he supposed to do???

If you are licensed to carry a gun, you raise your empty hands and announce to the officer that you are a licensed CC owner and that you have a weapon on you.

On the other hand, if you are an idiot hip-hop gang banger, you figure you can quick draw, kill the cops and go off to your next drug deal.

300 posted on 05/07/2008 7:24:56 PM PDT by Ditto (Global Warming: The 21st Century's Snake Oil)
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