TheAgitator.com
Puppycide
Wednesday, November 12th, 2008I’m asking this as a serious question: Do cops get any sort of training in how to deal with dogs? I’m sure many or most deal with them appropriately. But there sure seem to be a lot of these sorts of cases, where a cop shoots and kills a dog on while on the property of the dog’s owner, after which he’s backed 100 percent by his department.
But if any regular person walked into a someone’s house uninvited and shot the family pet—even with a gun he was licensed to own and carry—my guess is he’d have to show some pretty serious bite wounds to escape criminal charges.
UPDATE: Mark Draughn has more, including an aerial shot of the family’s fenced-in back yard.
These stories make me sick.
On the bright side, there will be a generation of children with a healthy distrust of authority since police killed their dogs in front of them.
I don’t have an answer to your question, RB, but I did run across this story from a local cop/blogger a while back, and complemented him in his comments section, for the professional way he and his partner handled the dog. The fact that the they didn’t kill the dog was just a throwaway part of the story that he didn’t even bother to mention, but it stood out like a sore thumb to me.
I’ve never heard of a firefighter or paramedic shooting a dog and they face somewhat similar stresses and dangers.
Along with ‘self-initiated arrests’ (finding something else to arrest someone for, such as possession, when you pull them over for speeding), I can’t help but feel this is part of their mindset.
I hope someone can answer this. My dogs are large breed, and these stories scare the crap out of me.
Disgusting. And just a note, forest park and park forest are different suburbs of chicago. Yeah, really. Forest park is quite upscale. Park forest is “not”.
Some years ago in Campinas, Brazil, police arrested a thief that climbed residential buildings to steal. He said that was easier than robbing houses because of dogs.
If I were to invade a house the FIRST thing that I would do would be to kill the house´s dogs. That´s the most reliable alarm that can exist.
25 years ago we were told to use mace on the big ones or shoot the dangerous ones if they were in the process of attacking you. The other dogs? Peer pressure and fear of ridicule from fellow cops had you just ignore the ankle biters no matter what they were doing. I have no idea what the hell the deal is these days.
Check out the comments at the story: poster after poster attacks the family for letting a dog out into their own backyard. Apparently all of them assume that a dog needs to be on leash, even in a person’s own yard.
Coordinated band-of-blue comment spamming in order to shape public opinion? … or just a bunch of dumbasses?
I would murder the son of a bitches that did this. Go upstairs, get your rifle, come back down and blow them all away. This is insane. Trespassing, murder, but it’s ok because “we’re investigating”. They just ruined an entire family’s lives, but more damaging was the trauma they just caused to these children. When does the “I had no choice”, “I was following policy”, etc. stop? They don’t even hide their contempt for us Citizen Nothings any more, it’s that bad with how empowered they feel by The State.
Ok, Lee, that’s a bit extreme. I’d sue them in civil court and try to have them charged with trespassing and destruction of property (which is what dogs are).
There certainly needs to be reform in police training.
Dave is correct, since this occurred in Park Forest, this puppycide probably happened to a family of proles. This makes it even less likely that anything will happen to police officer in question.
Also, I would not consider Forest Park, IL “quite upscale”, but Dave was correct that Park Forest is “not.”
What gets me is that the detective who pulled the trigger was accompanied by two other cops, one of whom was apparently the department’s dog handler. And he still felt the need to shoot? I’m guessing that the other two cops consider themselves lucky they didn’t hit with stray bullets…
I went through the Basic Law Enforcement Training in North Carolina. They had a block of training on how to deal with dogs which lasted less than half an hour and was included in another block of training.
I pretty much ignored it as I was working as an animal control officer and gave more information during the 10 minute smoke break then we received in the class.
NACA (National Animal Control Association) has a great course on how to read dog behavior. Should be required of all cops.
I handled almost every aggressive dog that came at me one of two ways. Clipboard upside the head or a catch-pole upside the head. The only time I ever drew down on a dog was when a 70 year old man got caught in his garden by two pit bulls, I happened to be investigating a complaint on these dogs, stepped in between them and I still didn’t shoot them. When I drew the gun the owner came out of the house and called them off.
I’ve shot three dogs. One was an aggressive stray that bitten a person and was aggressive in the neighborhood, another was a stray that was killing a lady’s cats (too near a highway to tranq and was trap wary) and the last was a declared dangerous dog that was scheduled for euthanasia and had escaped from the county run shelter.
And yeah, I’ve been bitten more times than I can count. Still around.
Hell yeah, Cappy. You could be chief of po-lice.
One of the commenters at the Southtown Star site says that dog owners should “get a fence.” Well, I did a little research, and I could be wrong, but…take a peak at aerial photo at the bottom of my own post about this and see if you can figure out which house belongs to the Walker family.
Those people loved their dog.
I have family in Park Forest, IMO all the suburban police forces there are only marginally better than Chicago PD, which isn’t saying much.
Any of you familiar with the “Buck Godot” comics by Phil Foglio? The character was based on a Hoffman Estates cop, which isn’t far from Park Forest. That should give you an idea of the general cop attitude in the area.
And of course, by law the proles are unarmed, so you can’t defend yourselves from the badge-carrying criminals, and would end up like Ryan Frederick at best if you did.
“When does the “I had no choice”, “I was following policy”, etc. stop?”
Post your own policy at the property line! Don’t give a shit about your legal intentions, my intentions are to repel your invasion, my dog would but bite, I bite with a bit more force and my dog authorized me to do so!
Dear cop, my dog hired an enforcer for his/her rights!
You probably really do not desire to hang around here any longer if you have transgressed those rights. As perceived by a dog!
Nuff said?
didn’t think so! So invoking the second amendment for exactly what it means, some more LE asswipes/personnel will get honors today.
WHERE IN THE HELL DID ANDY GRIFFITH GO WRONG? How in the hell did Barney Fife win that election?
And today it’s national!
#10:destruction of property (which is what dogs are).
They’re not property, they’re members of the family.
The whole “pets are property” sentiment is bullshit.
Robert:
Taking people to court isn’t any fun.
Shooting guns is LOTSA fun.
Greetings.
I am the cop/blogger that Rick spoke of above.
I am not going to get involved in the discussion beyond saying that I have received absolutely no training in dealing with dogs except a lifetime of having them in my house.
That being said, I have managed to function 15 years as a police officer and have had to shoot one dog after dealing with many. This one dog was a pit bull that had attacked one officer and bit him and then turned as was coming to me.
Most dogs can be dealt with by displaying “Alpha” characteristics and submit if done properly. It’s worked for me. That may be displayed by a whack with a clipboard or control stick or simply by body language and tone of voice.
I absolutely hate the idea of killing any animal.
“They’re not property, they’re members of the family.”
While they may be members of the family to many, that doesn’t mean they are not also (and legally) property. They are.
The simple solution is to take guns away from cops. They seem to indiscriminantly shoot people, animals, themselves, etc…I can’t see a good reason that those jokers should be armed.
I’m also willing to put them in danger – they signed up, they knew the risks, they can get bitten by dogs or shot by criminals, that’s their look out. The rest of us didn’t sign up to have our pets or our persons injured or killed by a bunch of power-tripping frat dick yahoos, so make them assume the risk.
“But if any regular person”
Just like you and me. Only better.
My friend was married to a NC cop for a few years. He was told that if a dog moved toward him in an aggressive way (barking, growling, etc.), and he felt he was in physical danger, he had the right to shoot to kill. No questions asked.
It’s just so sad that our brave men in blue are terrorized by Labradors and Terriers.
Perhaps the PD should consider training their officers to discern the difference between aggressive and fear behavior. I own a small excitable dog, about the size of a terrier, who is not comfortable around anyone in dark clothing. He has barked at police officers because he was afraid of them, not because he is a dangerous animal.
You repeat yourself.
No, it is the retards that we call the press corp/media. The story has the dog “escaping” from the fenced in backyard. Which of course doesn’t quite fit with the cop yelling, “Get your dog, get your dog!”.
I’m guessing the guy over-reacted and panicked. Of course the corollary to that is get him off the streets, get his gun away from him, and take his badge and at best send him back for more training. Since I’m a dog lover though, if I were the police chief I’d simply make his life Hell till he quit. Crappy desk job, crappy hours, no promotion, no hope of a career in law enforcement.
But that is standard for dogs when someone is invading their territory. Dogs don’t see colors, so the man in blue thing isn’t going to be seen as special (which probably pisses off most cops), nor does a dog respect the badge. So this is basically a license to kill any and all dogs a cop sees.
I agree with Lee 100% here. I saw someone shoot my dog there is gonna be a serious amount of lead heading for your ass, regardless of any shiny piece of metal you’re wearing.
My guess is it would be pretty hard to find a jury of 12 people where one of them wasn’t a dog lover.
I’m pretty sure they are trained on how to deal with dogs. The problem is, the training says, “1) Shoot dog. 2) Cite #1.”
And it doesn’t matter if they dog is leashed in the back yard. They shoot tethered dogs too.
If LEOs can shoot dogs with no consequenses, police dogs can be shot with the same impunity.
They are using a double standard right now. Police dogs are officers, but family dogs are not family members. What kind of logic lets that happen?
Marty (#3)
While this did not occur while the he was on duty, he is a firefighter… and he refuses to meet with the police over the “incident”.
Terrible story.
http://www.nbclosangeles.com/topics/?topic=Glynn+Johnson
Here’s another link for the same story:
http://www.pe.com/localnews/rivcounty/stories/PE_News_Local_E_puppy08.45cf726.html
Problems with cops and dogs:
1) To “the law”, dogs are just property. However, you have a right to protect your property with necessary force.
2) You have a moral obligation to question the validity of all laws. If they don’t promote justice, then it’s an invalid law.
3) Animals aren’t just property to most people with common sense, especially dogs, whom people develop a real bond with. They are emotional and spiritual creatures, not a chair or TV. There is no equating dogs and chairs, thus dogs aren’t property like a chair. Therefore “the law” in 1) is invalid.
4) Cops far too often indiscriminately prance around people’s private property in the name of “the law”, which absolves them of ALL wrong doings, especially violent acts. Reality shows that it’s pretty much impossible to get fired as a cop, regardless of what you do.
5) You have a right and duty to protect your private property.
6) You should never obey a cop just because they say so. It is your moral obligation to question their authority and demands, unless you consider yourself a slave (or you haven’t realized it yet that you yield all power to a cop, which still makes you a slave).
7) When you sue a cop, you don’t sue them directly in 99.9% of the cases, you sue this concept of a “city”. The money is paid for by your fellow taxpayer, therefore the cop doesn’t personally feel the pain.
8) The only way cops feel pain is by their superiors, AKA The Blue Wall of Silence.
9) Expecting a system/cops to fairly question and punish itself is like asking a burglar to protect your house while you take a vacation, the fox to guard the hen house, etc. It can only work if all people in the system are completely virtuous, which we already know to be very false with humans, especially with cops.
10) I can’t stress enough the damage done by these cops to the family and especially the children. To see your dog blown away, to have its blood on your hands, and to the child that let the dog out the door to pee which led to it getting blown away … that child will feel tremendous guilt for years BECAUSE of the cops and their actions (and in my opinion highly illegal, definitely immoral and stupid).
11) Why is it always “last thing we want to do is pull a gun and shoot”, yet it’s always the first solution? For crying out loud, they outnumbered the dog, they could just kick it or at least ATTEMPT to get it to understand who the alpha is. You don’t have to be a dog owner, around dogs, or anything else to at least TRY really quickly to yell/move at the dog as if you’re the superior being. Cops are trained to act this way towards Citizen Nothings (most cower in fear when the cop yells etc.), so to not attempt that towards a dog is ludicrous. This bullshit “Get Out Of Jail Free” card of “we have to make split second decisions” is exactly that … bullshit.
Bottom line is that the sense of empowerment and entitlement to shit and piss all over Citizen Nothings is a systemic problem. It is NOT right to claim “just following policy” etc. Cops are far too often stomping on a pacified citizenry, and turning some into being afraid for their life and/or having real, measurable emotional damage. You understand this even more if you, or someone you’re close to, has EVER been falsely accused of a crime you obviously never committed.
1. If a cop is so quick with using lethal force, he shouldn’t be on the street: how does he treat people?
2. That the review board (or whatever) said that this behavior is OK only goes to show that the wrong people and rules are being applied to oversee the police.
I think it’s pretty clear that killing a dog should be worse than breaking an item that cost as much as the dog. The cops should obviously pay damages, but it’s more than that. You can’t just go get the same dog from the dog factory. Once your dog is gone, it’s gone. It’s property, but the emotional attachement that family has, and the fact that you cannot have the SAME dog once it’s gone are both very relevant to the should-be punisment for the cops.
A dog isn’t property (in my opinion) because they are living, breathing, thinking, feeling creatures and they BLEED and DIE. Property, such as a chair, has none of these features. If a human isn’t considered property, then I don’t see why a dog should, considering the characteristics are the same.
I’m not all PETA about animals, but they have more value than property, and a life is forever gone and there is real emotional damage when the dog is dead. Animal value is somewhere between chairs and humans, and should be closer to humans than chairs. I’d put the value of my dogs a lot higher than most humans because my dogs won’t fuck me over and are always honest.
I love my dog more than most people. If ANY member of law enforcement were to harm my dog under ANY situation,rest assured I would find out where he lived and put a bullet in his skull first chance I got. The police need to know that they cant treat innocent citizens(and animals) in this fashion. Unfortunately,violence is the only language most cops understand…