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 ...
Time for a replacement.
(Don’t need to. Simply find the references regarding how many fully trained dogs there are versus the number of dogs in the hands of the police.
Compare and contrast.
Come to your own conclusions.)
OK, so in other words, You don’t have a clue and your just talking out your arse. That’s what i figured.
Fine, let me rephrase, A MAN is going to defend himself from an attacking animal. I cannot say what a woman would do.
I just wish "journalists" would do their job and investigate and report the FACTS.
Yes, almost all of my assumptions were made using ONLY what the article gave as facts or other possible scenarios.
For instance, We do know that (1) there was a report of shots fired and (2) he was in the vicinity of it.
We do know #1. #2 is an assumption on your part.
They could have been miles away from the vicinity that shots were fired in. The article doesn't say how close it was to that area.
Why would I think they would go to a report of shots fired at a speed of 35 or 40 MPH?
#1, if they had the lights and siren going they were probably going too fast to notice this guy on the streets. Otherwise, most city streets have speed limits of 25 to 40 MPH depending on the street and circumstance.
The article doesn't say WHY the police thought he had a gun. Just that they did.
Normally don't you have a suspicion based on some observation of something before you act?
Police aren't that different from you and me. But the article doesn't say.
The article stinks and you can make all the assumptions needed for just about ANY scenario you want if all you do is go by the article.
My point is that if you believe the article, then yes, this could have all been coincidence with the police harassing a citizen that just happened to be armed.
Is that what I believe happened? Probably not.
Harper is the police chief, he was NOT at the scene, and this version of events and those by witnesses don’t jive, and that’s all I’ve said from day one on this. I did read the whole article and also have heard statements from witnesses at the scene.
Again, for the Nth time, this account is from the Chief who was NOT at the scene, and this account does not coincide with eyewitness accounts.
I have no issue if the guy pulled his gun and threatened police or civilians having his brain turned into sidewalk paste. However if they unleashed a dog on him, and he defended himself against the dog, and was shot for that and that alone, that’s dubious.
You are pointing out what I have been saying, the cops version of events do not match what eyewitnesses on the scene have reported.
The suspect was clearly a punk based on the information that has come out since yesterday, however, that does not mean that their are no issues with what happened.
I’ll wait for the investigation, but at first blush, this one smells funny.
I don’t believe the story...
Would the police send their dog to attack someone who has pulled a gun???
The way it’s done everywhere else is when a weapon is pulled, the police start shooting...Why send a valued, defenseless dog at a loaded weapon when at the same time no one would send an unarmed police officer after the guy???
I’d bet the dog was ordered to attack before the gun was brandished...The soon to be dead guy then pulled a weapon and shot the dog and the police opened fire...
I don’t believe a person ought to be killed for protecting himself from a DOG which is about to tear him to shreds with his teeth...
If you got pulled over for speeding and looked in your rear view mirror and saw the cop putting on a pair of brass knuckles knowing he was going to beat you bloody, what would you do???
If the guy has used a baseball bat instead of a gun, should he still have been killed???
They don’t teach their dogs good manners...
“This scumbag didnt shoot just any dog, he shot a member of the police force”
I’ll probably get flamed, BUT.............
I have always had a problem elevating the status of an ANIMAL to that of a HUMAN BEING. A dog is a dog is a dog no matter who ownes it and no matter what it is capable of. Of course the ANIMAL must be properly cared for, trained and treated with respect, but it is and will always be a dog, not an officer. IMHO
That said, it sounds like a good shooting.
I would hope people, regardless of whether they were freepers or not, who were carrying legally would have the sense to obey the officers commands.
It would be prudent to inform the officer that they are a legal CCW holder and that they were carrying a "tool of self-defense" (terms suggested by an attorney who specializes in cases involving self-defense)
You might want to reverse those items...you may not get past the word gun without finding yourself eating asphalt!
The best thing to say is "I have a permit to carry and a tool of self-defense" (suggested by an attorney who specializes in cases involving legal self-defense)
Thank you PMom for injecting some adult and grown up thinking here. There is a contingent of cop bashers on here, apparently left over from the Warren Court.
Good grief, you certainly didn't think they train these dogs about how to behave in large crowds without their ever having been around a large crowd.
You should watch cable TV also. Discovery Channel has "police dog" specials at least monthly.
Given the half-life of these dogs when it comes to being in top physical and mental form, they need to be replaced long before their useful life as a dog is over. Many people are happy to get a well-trained, obedient, dog when that time comes.
Again, it is not necessary to live cheek to jowl with dogs up to your eyeballs to know something about them or to observe the obvious.
Anything to avoid saying the word “gun” since that will most certainly get you shot.
Dogs are fast, police dogs are fast and aggressive and specifically trained to disarm gun wielding “threats”.
If the dog had been loosed before the deceased pulled out his gun, the dog would have had him down on the ground BEFORE he could pull it out to shoot the dog in self defense. It is very unlikely that he would have had enough time to pull, aim and fire accurately enough to kill the dog unless he already had his finger on the trigger and already formed the decision to shoot.
Not necessarily shot, but most likely in a very uncomfortable position. Face down on the asphalt with several loaded "guns" pointed at you and several very nervous officers watching your hands.
Use common sense and let them know you are a law-abiding citizen who carries for the purpose of self-defense.
I have had a couple opportunities to talk with officers while I was carrying...they were comfortable with me since I let them know from the beginning that I had the permit. Both times I was treated respectfully by the officers.
There was another time I didn't even bother to inform since it was a basic traffic stop. If he had asked me to get out of the car, I would have complied after letting him know I was carrying so he could let me know how he wanted me to proceed.
Sorry, not buying it, a dog is a dog, its not “The Flash” pulling a gun is slower than a dog covering ground distance? You are dillusional.
A shephard at full speed, not from a standing start tops out at 14 meters per second.. top humans spring at a bit over 10 meters per second. While faster than a human, they are not so blindingly fast that they are on a suspect before he could pull a gun.. you are smoking some good stuff if you believe that.
Then the FBI agent decided the kid was making a suspicious move and tried to blow his head off.
Turned out these two weren't even the people the cops were after.
You can never, ever trust the cops when they are holding guns on you ~ some of them aren't listening and are unaware of what they've told you to do.
The FBI field office in Baltimore was very uninformative down the road as reporters and lawyers for the injured party tried to find out what was going on and why this FBI agent seemed to have turned bad.
That might well mean the victim had a gun in his hand aimed at where the dog was going to be once he closed the distance between the dog handler and the victim.
Interesting place to aim a gun eh?
Anyway, a step beyond that, when did the dog handler unleash the dog to attack the victim? Was it when he saw the gun ~ and if so, given normal reflex time to let the dog loose and issue the command to him, what was the officer doing with his gun hand?
Was he standing there with the dog under just voice command, his gun in his hand? Or, did he have the dog tethered with his gun in his holster?
You can see the complexity this situation involves. You have the cop and his gun (he's the one who shot the victim so we have to consider this). You have the cop and his dog. You have the dog and his tether. You have the dog and the distance to cover. You have the victim and his gun. You have the victim and his intent in showing the gun. You have the victim and how he was holding the gun before he fired at the dog.
You also have two other cops on the scene ~ apparantly part of a "team" that consisted of a dog handler, a tazer man, and a lookout/guard for the two specialists ('cause it's a rough town).
What were they doing? They were present with this cop when he let the dog bite a woman's butt 6 weeks earlier, so what were they doing here?
Who stood where; who did what; how many guns were drawn, and when; who got shot; who didn't get shot; and why was it deemed safe enough to use the dog to down the victim rather than zapping him with a tazer?
The number of items in the formula turns out to be quite huge, and far from a simple cut and dried "perp with gun gets shot" deal.
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