[Teacher317]

There is no way in hell that that dog was threatening the officer, as you'll hopefully see when you watch the video.

Two sides to every story.

One the one hand, you have five moron cops who refuse to listen, preferring their own automaton procedures, and leave the doors open, when the dog is plainly visible in the rear window of the vehicle (if it were some "dangerous" breed, and pretending that's not a stupid term), while the "perps" are very obviously complying as peacefully and obediently as they can in every way. If the dog gets loose and gets hit by passing traffic, the cops know they'll be sued. Add in the fact that the cops are relayed false information from a dispatcher who can't figure out that robbers wouldn't be throwing money out the window with the wallet. Bad, dumb, procedure-only cops with incompetent support.

On the other hand, the factors leading up to the moment don't matter when you consider whether an officer is justified in shooting at a single moment. The dog exited the car, ran a single wide circle (prancing, to any dog-lover), and was heading straight towards the cop (probably to sniff his pant leg and to try to lick his face... but the cop can't know this or count on it). He had the weapon trained on the pet the entire time, and was solidly (seemed almost too) professional about it. Once it got within striking (licking) distance, he shot. I can see how a board of reviewing officers, even those who aren't knee-jerk cop-protectors, could see the tenth-of-a-second decision to shoot as a justifiable one.

[walkingdead]

I look at it like this. Just replace the dog with a drunk friend this family was giving a ride home. Now, the drunk gets outta the car (having just woke up from being passed out) and weaves his way towards the cop to find out whats going on. The cop tells him to stay there, but the drunk can't hear him due to traffic. So he staggers forward, and the cop blows his head off at the shoulders all in the space of three seconds.

You see, this could just as easily been the way it went down, only you'd have a dead guy instead of a dog. Is either scenario right? Of course not, our un-educated law enforcement is becoming quite a danger.....

Now I'm with a few of the people on this thread. I'd go home, grab my 12ga. and wait on that cops front porch for him to get home. Because you see, he killed my dog, which could have just as easily been my son/daughter/wife/dad/ect. This police officer derserves to be removed from the gene pool.

[TaZ]

"Two sides to every story."

Yep, in Nazi Germany you had the humanity of the Gestapo to take into consideration when considering the fate of the Jews he slaughtered...

You would make a great trial lawyer for mass-murderers.

[TaZ]

Edit: You would make a great trial criminal defense lawyer for mass-murderers.