Ohio family returns home to find cops tased, then shot and killed their five pound Chihuahua mix after it escaped from the back yard.
Florida sheriff’s office pays $5,000 after deputy shoots family dog during warrant service.
Juvenile chased by cops runs into friend’s house to escape. Cops enter home, shoot family’s pet Akita 13 times.
Birmingham, Alabama pizza shop owner says police opened fire on her dogs unprovoked, killing two of them. Police spokesman says dogs didn’t respond to owner commands. “It appears it was within our firearms policy: they saw a threat to them and they neutralized the threat. They didn’t know if these dogs had a disease or whether they would sustain serious injury from a dog bite.”
Here’s one in Lafayette, Louisiana where witness accounts differ sharply from what the police claim happened.
Police in West Virginia shoot a dog properly on its leashed after it got into a fight with a police K9 dog that was untethered.
Cop shoots dog at playground. In fairness to the cop, if you own a pit bull-ish breed, you should really keep it on a leash in public, especially at a playground. That said, cops need to be better trained in how to deal with dogs, so they can distinguish playfulness from aggression, and so they have options other than just pumping bullets into the animal. Which is pretty much true for most of these stories. There are safer ways of dealing with even legitimately dangerous dogs.
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on Tuesday, June 9th, 2009 at 2:56 pm by Radley Balko
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TheAgitator.com
Don’t tarnish their memory of a loving pet. They should tell them the truth. Some cowardly cops shot him to death.
“That said, cops need to be better trained in how to deal with dogs, so they can distinguish playfulness from aggression, and so they have options other than just pumping bullets into the animal.”
Ooh! Ooh! Me! Me! I’m a dog trainer – I’d be quite willing to hav ethis be my business model.
J sub D,
I don’t think describing how police dispatched their dog to a 3 year old would be the healthiest thing.
Couldn’t they have just left the Chihuahua?
Why is the gun the first option?
When a cop and a crack whore bystander disagree about events, why should I believe the cop?
“Why is the gun the first option?”
Because so many “peace officers” are sadistic, power-mad psychos who answer to no one.
Judas Peckerwood “Because so many “peace officers” are sadistic, power-mad psychos who answer to no one.”
Bingo!
I don’t think describing how police dispatched their dog to a 3 year old would be the healthiest thing.
Yeah, it might counteract all of the pro LEO propoganda the kid is going to receive from American society over the next dozen or so years. You wouldn’t want him to take the D.A.R.E. instructor with a grain of salt.
That Chihuahua fought back harder than most humans would. Bravo for him, he died with his boots on.
I agree with J sub D, tell the kids the truth. The parents are just prolonging the agony, give the kids some closure and a good lesson in reality — fear the police.
In the Louisiana story, I like how the cops approached the guy with the dog with their Tasers already pointed at him. The LEOs were probably semi-erect with sweaty palms just ready to hit that guy with some electricity.
And Taseing and shooting a Chihuahua? Really? I mean most cats are bigger that those things….
Threatened by a 5 lb. chihuahua??
Ankle-bite threat.
Besides, because dogs have VERY sensitive hearing, the police just firing a pistol ONCE into the air will make the dog immediately leave at a fast run from the neighborhood…………Why?
Because the SOUND of the gunshot really hurts their ears!
“‘Why is the gun the first option?’
Because so many ‘peace officers’ are sadistic, power-mad psychos who answer to no one.”
I basically agree, but the flip side here is off-leash dogs are difficult to read, especially for a non-dog-person like myself. I’ve had plenty of encounters, including a couple unnerving recent ones, where off-leash dogs approached me (quickly, barking) and despite my being relatively cool about such things I really couldn’t tell where they were coming from (though “playful” demeanor was far from obvious). I really can’t stand when dog owners allow this; the bottom line is if you have a dog that likes to approach others, you should keep it leashed. Most “others” are cool but some of them might be afraid of dogs or simply not know how to react.
Now, I don’t mention this to sanction any ridiculous cop behavior, esp as the norm seems to be unwarranted dog blasting, but the truth is most dogs can inflict a nasty bite, and I would say that it’s probable that not all “puppycides” are in fact unjustified, particularly if the officer involved is already dealing with a situation with other threats involved and the dog is behaving in any non-obviously-friendly-or-submissive way.
In other words, I’m addressing the pit bull remarks of the last bullet point most directly; it may be difficult to distinguish playfulness and aggression, and I’d sure rather err on the side of not being bitten, personally. “‘It was pretty obvious the dog did not respond to owner’s command,’ said Sadler. ‘At that point, it’s a dangerous animal.’” I have to concur with this sentiment; in both of my recent encounters the owner was verbally commanding the dog to return; the dog was having none of it, and was approaching me rapidly and barking, again in a not-obviously-playful way. I don’t really care if the dog’s growling or not, if I had pepper spray both of these dogs would have been gassed.
If you wanted to get the police desensitized to using violence against the public, how would you go about doing it?
It was obviously a drug-dealing, illegal immigrant Chihuahua.
“but the flip side here is off-leash dogs are difficult to read, especially for a non-dog-person like myself. ”
Agreed. If a large dog is running at me full speed, my first thought is not “Aww, he wants to play”.
Many police apparently view a confrontation with a barking dog as a target shooting opportunity.
Why?
It’s a relatively small yet living target that is very mobile.
Hence, GOOD target practice.
And, MOST importantly, will NEVER shoot back…..nor file a complaint about police brutality.
Practically perfect.
Here, puppy….
Tim C
1) Almost all dogs will react to protect their owners and families (their “pack” in the dog’s mind) if they are threatened. If the police were to approach in a less confrontational manner – say knocking on the door instead of bursting in – they might find that people and dogs might react in ways that got a lot fewer police, suspects, bystanders and dogs hurt.
2) While any dog can inflict a nasty bite, it is almost impossible for a single dog weighing less than 40 libs to take down an adult human being.
3) Reading dog body language is not that difficult. A dog that is barking and standing off a few feet is unlikely to attack unless it is provoked further. If a dog is going to attack, it does it – no waiting or hesitating.
4) If the cop is afraid of dogs – which is not that unusual for anyone – they could try asking the owner to restrain it before opening fire.
Being a dog in Louisiana has got to be the worst.
I mean, do white people even have civil rights there?
“Cosmos Pizza co-owner Leisa Bunn and her boyfriend were jailed for cursing police”
WTF?!?! It’s actually against the law to swear at a police officer? So they shoot the couple’s dogs, and then get their feelings hurt because the couple was upset with them? Grow the hell up you power mad brats.
The more I read this blog, the more I wish we could fire every single police officer and start over from scratch.
A five pound dog bites an officer 17 times? I hope they meant 17 punctures.
@ Chance # 18
If a large barking dog is running at you full speed, your best chance to avoid injury is to face the dog standing as tall and square as possible and shout “Back!” or “Down” when it is 10 – 20 feet away.
This will not stop a dog that is intent on attacking, but it will cause most dogs to halt and bark at you from a safe distance. If the dog continues to attack, DO NOT RUN, this provokes the “chase’ response. Protect yourself as best as you can, especially your face and neck.
Does this mean I have to get rid of my Policeman Voodoo Dolls?
Art Kling- you have to run those numbers through the same reduction by a factor of ten that you have to use to get the real street price from police drug bust estimates.
I think the common claim that cops shoot dogs because they’re trained to use force when they feel that their lives are threatened is bullshit.
How is it that friends, neighbors and their children, meter readers, postal employees, package and pizza delivery drivers, and other strangers all come into contact with these animals day in and day out without feeling threatened?
Even civilians who have guns don’t go around killing the neighborhood dogs claiming their lives were in danger.
Nope. The key factor in these shootings isn’t the dogs or the guns nearly so much as it is the character of the person doing the shooting.
Cops aren’t trained to defend themselves when their lives are in danger. They’re trained (and encouraged by the lack of repercussions) to shoot first and ask questions later.
Don’t cops carry pepper spray or mace? Or is it just tasers now? Such measures seem to be quite adequate for mailmen, meter readers, etc.
Telling the kids that the dog ran away is worse. Especially, notice the older child is now still going outside, calling for the dog to come back; no closure there, and I have to think it would hurt to believe the dog left of its own accord. While all kids are different, I have three kids of similar age (6, 4 and 2) and I would tell them the truth, or something close to it.
Cops are pussies!
“Blue Ash police say one of the officers was bitten on both hands. One hand was bitten 17 times and the other was bitten nine times.”
I find that really hard to believe. Unless it was a Vorpal Chihuahua, but then it would simply have leapt 20 feet and ripped out the Officer’s throat. Of course, that seems to be the general view cops have of animals.
So.. these retards corner a frightened dog and go to pick it up. What were they going to do with it then? Take it home? I doubt they carry dog cages around with them. If only there was someone who does, and has expertise in the area… Oh! Snap! They could have called Animal Control!
I also find it hard to believe the second officer was going to tase the animal while it was clamped to the first officer’s hand. Then managed to fire 3 rounds at it without hitting the first officer. Or himself. While in a pitched, life or death battle with a 5 pound dog.
Chihuahuas are tough little dogs … they won’t hesitate to bully large dogs … I can believe that one would go down fighting.
The cops probably tried to manhandle the little critter, and suddenly found themselves dealing with a small tornado of pain.
They reacted the same way most cops seem to react to slight threats these days … by shooting.
I have often helped at a friends kennel, who specializes in french ring sport. I can honestly say the only dog that I would be afraid to take on one-on-one bare handed would be a presa canario.
Even the dreaded pit bull aren’t that hard to deal with. Its not that hard to overpower and out-smart a dog.
Much less a five pound dog.
I do not particularly like the Memphis account, in the newspaper every dog is a “pit bull”. Idiots.
As for the cops… So a dog is on a leash, your badly behaved, poorly trained, idiot german shepherd causes a fight with it by invading its space and not understanding normal dog social cues…and you shoot the rotweiler mix? WTF, pig?
Dave, the one difference between the cast of characters you listed and LEOs is that LEOs are agents of the State.
The State uber alles.
I’m trying to picture this, and I can’t figure out how you can shoot a chihuahua without shooting your own foot.
Quite a threat, indeed.
[...] Balko has an ugly roundup of recent skirmishes in law enforcement’s War on Dogs, which we have noted previously. When [...]
Mind you I wasn’t saying earlier that the parents shouldn’t have told their young children that the dog was dead. My point was that describing to a 3 year old the disturbingly violent death of the dog might do more harm then good. Despite what some people on here might think, fostering a hatred of law enforcement isn’t a good thing. If it takes potentially traumatizing a toddler to start teaching them not to blindly accept a government’s authority or motives, then that is pretty shitty parenting imo.
“It was pretty obvious the dog did not respond to owner’s command,” said Sadler. “At that point, it’s a dangerous animal.”
Hmm cops are suppose to work for the people, so if they don’t respond to us then they are a dangerous animal and should be…?
Well, it was a Chihuahua…. those things have teeth that actually spin around their jaw bones like a chainsaw.
Why, there was one Chihuahua that went back in time and caused the extinction of the dinosaurs.
In some areas, the police have had to purchase Armored Personnel carriers so the few surviving officers will have somewhere to hide in case one of these things gets loose.
http://www.reason.com/blog/show/128482
Remember, if you can see a Chihuahua, it can see you. If you can’t see a Chihuahua, you could be seconds from death.
#36 Bob, that made my day. :)
people over react to the stereotypes of aggressive dogs. we under react to the reality of the police.
Explaining to a 3 and 5 year old that somebody murdered their beloved pet seems pretty silly to me.
Telling them the truth when they’re old enough for the “police aren’t your friends no matter what your teachers, your friends, or the tv says” would be entirely appropriate.
Bullshit! A 5 pound dog does not have jaws strong enough to injure an adult’s hand. Fuckhead cops! The kid crying himself to sleep really pissed me off. Fuckhead fucking fucktard cops. Complete shithead fucks EVERYone of them.
Fuck…I HATE pigs.
The account from Birmingham (where I live) has some unusual discrepancies.
The police story is that they were talking with one of the owners when the dogs approached them. After Crawford tried to verbally warn off the dogs, the police drew and started firing.
I have two problems with this. One, if the police were so concerned about roaming dogs — why didn’t they follow up to find the dogs (if nothing else, a dead dog IS a health hazard), instead of letting them wander around injured? And two, no dog owner worth his salt is going to just let Joe Bob the Cop open fire on his dog. At the /least/ I would loudly remonstrate with the officer. At the worst? He’d be picking his teeth up off the ground.
I /do/ fault Mr. Crawford for not having his dogs on a leash. I don’t fault him for being irate at what appear to be imbeciles with firearms and badges, who seem to lack any socialization skills with man or beast.
First the beatdown on that guy near the Galleria, now this. I don’t like Mayor Langford much, but his remark about idiot cops is starting to look terribly accurate.
goddamned motherfuckers!
This observation is not mine, in fact I may have read it on this blog, originally; but it bears repeating. Somehow, firemen manage to pull dogs from burning buildings, and it’s difficult to imagine a more stressful situation for both dog and human.
I don’t ever expect to hear that a fireman shot a dog (or hit it with his axe). I suppose if we ever come to that, the human race is completely lost.
Steve — Your point about “desensitizing” police is interesting. I’ve heard it said that serial killers begin by torturing and killing animals.
Sorry for the French. I’m aghast at the attitudes of the supervisors, most of whom won’t lift a finger to punish these rotten killers. At least when the victim is a human, there’s some chance that the higher ups will give a crap. (Also, a chance they’ll cover it up.)
They have to know the emotional attachment families have to their pet dogs, which means they are either the biggest pussies in the world to be afraid of a tiny dog, or they have no problem inflicting emotional harm on people for no good reason. If they didn’t have a badge and know they had immunity, they would certainly have to fear for their safety from angry pet owners. Hell, I’d be very tempted to vote to acquit if I were on a jury.
#17 Aresen -
Agreed with point 1.
Point 2 – if a dog is running at me, I’m going to assume it can get a bite in somewhere if it gets close enough. I’m not worried about whether or not it will take me down.
Point 3 – in both of my recent encounters, there was no standing off. One was on bicycle and dog seemed to be bent on chasing bikes (he had chased/nipped at guy ahead of me on trail, so I was like “uh oh”), and the other was on the beach and the dog just came dashing in, and unlike usual such encounters, the dog didn’t seem to have that “OH MY GOD I’M AT THE BEACH” happy excitement that is typical in such situations.
Point 4 – agreed, the point of my post wasn’t to justify ALL puppycides (point of Radley’s posts on this topic well taken, agreed with), just to say that I’m sure some cases it’s justified, and in some cases the owner probably should behave differently (such as having a dog that likes to run at people well-restrained). Definitely in most of these cases there shouldn’t be surprise entry (for victimless crimes, usually), panic situations, cops being dicks, etc. For sure. Like that one in Oklahoma where the dog’s behavior was friendly (even to me, this was obvious), the guy could have easily retreated to his car, and the dog definitely didn’t pose a threat. A cop that dumb sure as hell does….
Hey, don’t the jackboots go up higher than a chihuahua can bite?
#27 “Cops are pussies!”
I wonder if we are all becoming pussies. When I was a kid, I remember several dogs in the neighborhood that scared the shit out of us, but we learned to deal with them – particularly if they came flying around the corner of the garage while you were trying to collect paper route money. Funny that a 12 year old can handle hostile dogs, but a trained “peace officer” – not so much.
My 9 and 7-year-old kids have more command of strange dogs than these idiots…
Let’s be aware of just how psychotic and trigger-happy American cops can be around dogs. People like Dave Kreuger at 22 and Mario at 45 are quite correct in noting that many other professions manage to deal with dogs without riddling them (or bystanders! see next post) with lead. Note also that Western Europe and Canada also have very large dog populations and armed police officers and yet the constant drumbeat of shootings so characteristic of America doesn’t happen there. Obviously the problem is the cops, not the dogs.
Let’s at least, amongst ourselves, agree that the cops might not always be wrong. Why? Not because of the cops, lord knows. But because we’ve all met some incredibly asstastic owners who have no clue about how to prevent their dog from getting freaked out, no idea how to control it, or no interest in controlling it. You know the type: the one who smiles and says, “oh, he’s fine” when his unleashed dog is approaching a small child with the mouth closed, angry eyes and tail up an still, the one who could see his dog bite someone and still be a surly jerk insisting it was all the bitee’s fault. Let’s not leave out the legion of very tiny-dicked morons who need a vicious dog to foster their pathetic masculinity. They’re out there and they aren’t going away merely because the cops have had a brain bracket break loose.
@Seeker6079
We can concede this. Sometimes people’s dogs run out of control, regardless of whether or not they’re good owners. Living things are not subject to mathematical precision. Sure. Fine.
What we generally rail against here, Balko through his investigation and reporting, and the rest of us great unnamed in our convictions, if not our blogs, is the notion that a “few bad apples”, in the face of simple and overwhelming volume, is still a valid argument. You cannot say, after looking through the numerous “puppycide” entries here, that these are a series of isolated incidents, any more than you could say that the many, many documented incidents of police brutality or misconduct also compiled here are themselves isolated incidents. Not to be presumptuous, but I would say that that idea is the true essence of this blog, and its incidental readers, its connected associations.
In other words; we elect to concede the proof of mundane human stupidity without ignoring the presence of systematic violence. They both exist.
Be fair, Tim. Your 9 and 7-year old kids are also smarter, more thoughtful and have better manners. You can’t expect cops to live up to your kids’ standards.
:)
Both dogs are doing well. Max was treated and released for his bullet wound, which pretty much grazed his neck.
Bogie the police dog is back to work with a punctured snout.
Aaawh! A happy ending!
Marty, I wish I could vote that up more than once. I wonder: Are police officers not allowed to own dogs? Surely if any of them did they would have a problem with all this unprovoked slaughter.
Lord, yes.
I own two Chihuahuas and a Beagle mix, so I have some experience on how to deal with smaller breeds. What the chi mix did was quite predictable-small breeds are well known for getting aggressive and fighting back when they feel threatened. They’ll often do this in situations where a larger breed will not, because they perceive a threat that can hurt them. It’s also pretty easy to deal with a smaller breed when cornered-simply throw a towel or the like over it and then scoop it up. And yes, a chihuahua can and will deliver a nasty bite if provoked, and what the cops did in the story was provoking it and turning on it’s defensive reflexes. It bit that hard because it was scared to death and wanted to escape. This is really just piss poor training on the part of the police here-if you don’t know how to deal with a dog (any breed, it doesn’t matter) then call in someone who does. Dogs act in a predictable fashion-big or small they will follow a pattern of behavior based upon pack behavior and instinct. Any animal control professional would have had that dog restrained in seconds without hurting it. It’s not that hard-so why are these cops allowed to carry a weapon if they can’t even deal with a dog without killing it?
And yet I’m willing to bet you didn’t shoot any of these dogs.
Look it’s real easy, ears up and forward = I want to play, ears back or down = I’m angry/scared
[...] If I was a cop, all those dogs would be dead. [...]
Stormy: You’re right of course regarding body language, but frankly, when a dog is charging at you unexpectedly and at full speed, it’s just not always that easy to get a good visual read of the dog’s body language in the few seconds you may have to react, especially without practice, and given the wide variety of shapes for a dog’s head and ears. I have to side with Tim C on this one.
I am a veterinary technician with many years of experience.
I’m comfortable with any breed, and fairly confident in my ability to read dog body language, which I credit as one of the reasons I’ve never been bitten.
And yet, on the occasions when I have been charged by dogs while out walking, I have not always been confident I could accurately gauge the dog’s intentions.
None of which excuses trigger happy cops.
It is only a matter of time before police officers end up having to shoot a dog owner after shooting a dog. I’m surprised it hasn’t happened multiple times already.
Because I hate to even imagine how I would respond if a police officer shot my (twelve pound) dog, but I imagine that it would take a fair amount of force to prevent me from dismembering the officer who did so. He sleeps in my bed, for crying out loud.
Sorry, Stormy, it’s not that simple. Ears forward can mean curious, attentive, or dominant/confident. Ears back is not necessarily scared. Dogs also put their ears back when they are in a state of relaxation or submission. Pay attention to a dog’s ears the next time you are petting one. Chances are they will go back and the dog’s mouth and face will relax. Ears back with bared teeth, on the other hand, is a surefire sign of aggression/fear. Reading a dog’s body language is never that simple. It might seem intuitive after having lots of experience with dogs, but it can get pretty iffy distinguishing between subtle differences in body language if you’re not familiar with dogs or have other stuff to think about.
That said, cops that indiscriminately shoot dogs are absolutely unworthy of their responsibilities. Beyond any political or personal misgivings about the role of law enforcement in our society, I think we can agree that it’s a shitty idea to fire a gun when your life is not being threatened where a miss or deflected round could mean someone–yes, possibly even a child–being seriously injured or killed. Why is this not being talked about? As frequently as these types of things happen, it’s only a matter of time before somebody is accidentally shot, and that would be a little on the tough side to spin.
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We were discussing in terms of a dog running toward you. A relaxed, submissive dog isn’t going to charge you. And a confident/dominant dog may charge, but they’re not going to attack you.
I thought that the police are trained to “protect and serve”. Since the owner of the chained dog”s property was in danger from the police dog…they should have shot the police dog and “protected” the citizen’s property. Since they “had no control” over their police dog it would have been justified.
A point that I made to a friend today:
It isn’t so much that there are ‘a few bad apples’. The problem is that there is no effort to either retrain these fools or remove them. Letting them retain rank and authority sends the wrong message to ALL parties.
And that will cause more problems than a thousand ‘bad apples’.
“The problem is that there is no effort to either retrain these fools or remove them. Letting them retain rank and authority sends the wrong message to ALL parties.”
Agree with your premise that this causes problems, but how to deal with the unions?
#49 | Stephen
“Hey, don’t the jackboots go up higher than a chihuahua can bite?”
Yes, but it’s impossible to get a good shine on dog-chewed leather.
Wow. So many incidents and – a quick search of the news shows you still missed a few. Including one where a dog was tazered.
Holy dog crap. Do I need to buy kevlar vests for my pack?
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