Puppycide in Nashville, where a cop responding to a silent alarm shot and killed the homeowner’s boxer. The dog was tethered. The police department found the shooting justified, of course. Your humble Agitator is quoted in the article.
Reuters runs a surprisingly fair and honest look at the failure of marijuana prohibition.
I think at some point, this photo slips into another dimension.
Headline: “Officers cheer police shooting verdict in Lima.” That would be the shooting that killed an innocent woman, and wounded her infant son. It would be a shooting where an officer mistook his colleague’s gunfire and opened up on a target he couldn’t see.
Annapolis car seizures on record pace.
Giants fan buys a 17-0 Patriots’ t-shirt from a Nicaraguan village, just to piss off Pats fans in the U.S. I like him. Best line:
“On the bus, I studied the :19-0 Perfect Season” hat and pointed out to Ilan the line etched into the red and blue Velcro strap: “WE WANTED IT MORE.”
Not as much as we did.
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on Thursday, August 7th, 2008 at 9:02 am by Radley Balko
and is filed under Gambling and Poker, General Criminal Justice, General Drug War, Nanny State, Police Militarization, Police Professionalism.
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TheAgitator.com
The quotes from the cops in Lima just continue to be vile. “He should have shot sooner” and the FOP tool talking about ‘it’s better this way, cause otherwise come cops might get injured or killed.’
Hello?!?!?! An innocent woman and child are dead. But I guess that’s alright, cause they’re not part of the FOP. Better them than us, eh? And hey, they were shacking up with a guy who ‘we’ wanted to arrest, and just got in the way. Stuff happens.
*sarcasm*
Oh Well. The important thing is that we followed the procedure we wrote down. And because we did, we can use that same procedure again and again, no matter what the results.
*/sarcasm*
The dog’s doing what he’s supposed to do,why couldn’t the cop just retreat?
One of the commentors noted that lots of people encounter dogs as part of their job and manage to do so without killing them.
Are cops really this poorly trained?
It is somewhat amusing that the shortened name for the article about the Lima shooting in the link is just “officers_cheer_police_shooting”.
Regarding both the puppycide story and Lima verdict, too bad the rule that says a cop is allowed to shoot if he feels his life is in danger doesn’t apply to civilians. Unwarranted civilian injuries and death resulting from interactions with cops seem to be happening more frequently. If you don’t have the right to defend yourself against that and there are no repercussions for police who cause unnecessary injury and death, then it can only get worse.
Don’t pretty much all police carry pepper spray or mace? Why can’t (or why don’t) they do the same as mail carriers or meter readers and use that (as a last resort) when a dog seems aggressive?
Regarding the Annapolis csr seizure article:
“Anything that can discourage the illegal market of drugs should be pursued,” [Alderman Richard Israel] said.
“Can” is absolutely not the right word to use. There doesn’t seem to be much evidence that seizing cars deters drug crime in any non-negligible way. It would be much more appropriate for the alderman to say, “Anything that _does_ discourage the illegal market of drugs should be pursued.”
Also, this:
“It’s an excellent law enforcement tool,” said Alderman Frederick Paone, R-Ward 5, a prosecutor with the State’s Attorney’s Office. He believes it makes doing and selling drugs here “more trouble than it’s worth.”
But unless the amount of drug use, sales, and trafficking actually goes down as a result of the seizures, then it’s specifically _not_ a good law enforcement tool. If you’re steaming peoples’ cars to prevent your drug problem, but the tactic doesn’t actually abate the problem, then it’s actually a terrible law enforcement tool, because you aren’t actually making any progress on the alleged problem.
Here in Virginia, It does apply to civilians. And the Chesapeake Police are about to be reminded of that in the Ryan Frederick case.
I personally love this from the Lima article. “But jurors were told by visiting Judge Richard Knepper during jury instructions that they could not consider the fact that she was unarmed because that was known only after the shooting.” I guess ignorance should be rewarded now?
Wouldn’t it be a great scam for the police to seize the cars, leave some drugs in them, bust the owner, reseize the car and sell the car again? With the sort of corruption that results from the War on Drugs, I wonder when someone will start doing this.
Lima Verdict: “Citing a 1985 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that set guidelines for use of force by police, the jurors were told they could only judge Chavalia’s actions based on what he was aware of when he fired into the bedroom where Wilson was with her six children.”
How come this doesn’t hold true for the property owner when the property owner is only aware that he has been woken from sleep by someone violently entering his home?
This merely cements the fact that the police are held to a lower standard than Joe Peasant.
7 out of 10 cars forfeited don’t even belong to the owner! this is wrong on so many levels… How many families are being devastated by losing their (in many cases) most valuable asset?
as a landlord, I’ve lost good tenants due to bullshit enforcement of bullshit laws- these are wide, highly damaging nets these nannies are throwing.
Complete Bravo Sierra. I want the cops to hesitate so they don’t shoot innocents. This kind of mentality has the very distinct possibility of leading to shoot first, and don’t worry about the consequences because there are none.
Yes, it could mean more dead and injured cops. Guess what that is the type of job you signed up for. If you don’t like it quit and go find a nice and safe cubicle jockey job.
I’m even skeptical of this. The more likely scenario is they saw pit bull terriers and shot them irrespective of what they were doing. And knowing what pit bull terriers are like, I doubt they were charging. This type of dog, despite all the hyperbole are simply not known for being human aggressive.
Does this judge realize the perverse incentive he’s just put in place? Cops can now use deadly force with much greater regularity because the cop can always say, “I wasn’t sure if the person had a weapon or not and I was scared for my life.” Great job judge dumbass.
Yes, precisely, this way we also have fewer dead and injured innocents. You can see the perverse outlook of organizations like the FOP: Cops have greater value than the innocent. That is the bottomline. By allowing cops to just shoot willy nilly they are little better than the thugs they are supposedly protecting us from.
#2
The cops are the only ones who have guns, and the only ones who get wood shooting anything living. Shooting dogs generally has no downside. Even shooting humans, as seen in Ohio, doesn’t result in terrible consequences.
I get physically ill whenever I read the comments ( comments over there, not over here) after these police shootings.
#10
Welcome to the New World Order.
The po-lice will have order, even if it kills us.
So, how ARE the COLTS gonna do this year? The constant jealousy from theagitator is tiring.
Anyone else notice the ironic name of the officer in the dog shooting article?
“The officer, Eric Bacon, said the dog charged him aggressively and that he was afraid he would be attacked.”
“Signs warning that a dog is on the premises, a locked fence and a lead that doesn’t give the dog too much leeway all help, Reinbold said.”
And to think that Vick feller is looked down upon!
[bold] “Signs warning that a dog is on the premises, a locked fence and a lead that doesn’t give the dog too much leeway all help, Reinbold said.” [/bold]
Did I misread? I understood that the dog WAS on a lead.
Perhaps from now on, all dog owners should be required to set up a perimeter alarm for the popo. “Warning, Warning. There is a dog on the premises. Please do not be alarmed. He is tied up in the back yard inside a crate and behind a locked fence. You may, however, hear him bark.”
I think they’re saying that either the lead was too long or there was no signage warning the officer, so he was so surprised he opened fire.
Someone that twitchy shouldn’t be a cop at all.
I’m not a cop but I carry a gun everyday, I go to houses with dogs at them every day I work. I’ve been lunged at, I’ve been hit in tyhe crotch with forepaws and dog-skulls, I’ve been nipped at, growled at, tail-whipped, almost knocked down, slobbered on and had my clothes left with massive paw prints on them.
Not once have I ever even thought of drawing my gun and shooting one of the dogs.
Why?
Am I more intelligent and rational than these dog killers?
Am I more moral then they?
Perhaps part of it is that if *I* needlessly shoot a dog I go to jail, lose my job, get sued, lose my standing in the community, and will be officially villified by the “justice” system and the local media.
Maybe if cops had to worry about such things there would be less stupid killings of innocent dogs.
So cops in Lima can now shoot anyone they wish under any circumstances if they just think you are armed?
Lest anyone think this sounds wimpy, my American Pit Bull Terrier’s tail is like a thick steel cable when it hits. Getting hit in the face really hurts.
Yes.
Between Chavalia and Christopher Long, the rule becomes clear: if the cops hear a loud noise, they can kill anybody nearby with no substantial consequences.
At least with Long, the police have done some introspection and maybe reform, although that probably has more to do with lawyers than police. Why can’t the police at least take the middle ground more often, and support cops like Chavalia as “doing the best he could under the circumstances”, while admitting the need to change policies to prevent such circumstances? I’m not so jaded as to think the police want infants shot, but it’s hard to hold on to that minimal level of faith in them if they refuse to see it happening as a sign they need to make changes.
Why don’t the police unions just quit the pretense and ask that dogs be banned. It interferes with their job, right? Hopefully cats will learn something from this and keep quiet.
Cats already aren’t safe. “I thought Felix might have been a dog, Your Honor.”
It does? Everyplace I know of, one had to have a reasonable belief–not just a feeling–that his life is in danger, and that shooting will alleviate that danger without endangering innocents. Further, except within one’s home, one must reasonably believe that no other non-lethal course of action will alleviate the danger.
I cannot think of any circumstance where it is proper for a policeman to shoot through a blind wall without knowledge of what’s beyond it. I wonder what the “prosecutor” had to do to throw the case?
Chavalia’s career w/ Lima P.D. is “essentially over.” Well I should hope so. If I shot an unarmed mother in a reckless manner which suggested indifference to (”Civillian”) life, then I wouldn’t show my face in that town again. Is there a “bad shooting” protection team that might whisk Officer Chavalia off to Idaho or something. Oh, and to the cops in Ohio: If you want to do what’s best for police all over the U.S., look deeper into this situation for a change. Even if you sympathize with Chavalia, ask yourselves, why was he put into this situation in the first place. If the drug war wasn’t being waged in this militarized fashion, maybe this never would have happened. Quit this tribal bull shit and realize that you citizens before you are police. If you cannnot act like thinking, feeling individuals, then the community will see you as mindless agents of the state.
#12 Steve Verdon: Excellent point. The cops should be hesitant to fire because they are SUPPOSED TO BE “peace officers,” not soldiers. Their mission SHOULD be to preserve life whenever possible and to stop the threat with minimal use of force. As Radley continues to document, the wall between civillian peace officer and soldier is crumbling everyday. If police departments don’t want to be viewed as “standing armies” (and they essentially are in the ghetto) then they better stop this shit.
What’s with people and alarms? The $40/mth is wasted money. The homeowner’s insurance discount is less than $100/yr. 30min response time if you’re a regular Joe? Any punk can clean my house of all valuable electonics in less than 20 and be out of there if noone is home.
If I am home any invasion will be over in less than 1 min with the perps bodies shot twice lying in a pool of their own blood on my hardwood floor.
That being said, what’s wrong with them f*cking cops. If you’re afraid of a dog maybe you should be in a different line of business.
Assuming the cop who shot the mom with the kid in her arms is anything but a monster (and he’s probably a regular human being who panicked at the wrong time), he’s probably permanently f-cked up by what happened.
The problem here isn’t thuggish cops (though they exist, and need to be weeded out). The problem here is sending guys smashing through the door with guns drawn. There’s just no way to make that into a low-risk operation, so it should only be used in situations where there are no other decent choices at all–something like a hostage situation, maybe. Using this for low-level drug dealers is nuts, like trying to get rid of the rats in your apartment by blazing away at them with a handgun–you’ll likely kill some rats, but you’re also liable to kill a neighbor or two by mistake.
I can see how shooting a woman with a baby in her arms is super re* uckingtarded…but I would shoot an aggressive dog any day before I let him sink his nasty sharp teeth in me. Don’t get me wrong, I have a pit bull at home, I love dogs but I have been bit…All I know is a dead dog wont bite.