Posted on 07/09/2013 10:37:24 PM PDT by Altariel
An off duty police officer has shot his neighbour's dog dead in front of it's 12-year-old owner, after it allegedly attacked him and his wife.
The Fitzhenry family, from Harris County, Texas, say their beloved boxer dog, Gunner - who they described as a big softie - was shot by the off-duty Houston police officer on Friday along a pathway.
Houston Police Department Officer Mark Condon claims the four-year-old dog charged at him and his wife, after it escaped from the Fitzhenry's garden by accident.
But according to 12-year-old Dalton Fitzhenry, who family say treated the dog like a brother, the pet had only wanted to play.
The Fitzhenry family, from Harris County, say their beloved boxer dog, Gunner, was shot by an off-duty Houston police officer on Friday along a pathway
They say the four-year-old dog escaped from their garden by accident after their children opened the gate and went to pick up a ball they had been playing with
Mr Condon, said: 'The dog charged us and attacked me, my wife and one of our dogs.'
He fired at the dog, striking it in the neck, Khoun.com reports.
He claim details of the injuries he, his wife, and dog suffered, have been recorded by police.
The Fitzhenrys said Gunner was one of the family and losing the animal was like 'losing an older brother' for their children. They now plan to lodge a formal complaint with HPD.
Dalton, 12, said the officer had shot the dog at point blank range. The animal died on the way to a vet.
He added: 'He just pulled it out, like, point-blank range and shot.
'Gunner didn’t have the chance to run.'
Dalton’s parents said the boy was screaming and crying as he watched the ordeal.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
He claim details of the injuries he, his wife, and dog suffered, have been recorded by police.
Maybe Japanese cops carry a pork chop around with them for just those situations. (snicker)
Time to start Steroid Testing for LEO’s.
I’d like to make two point here:
1). Don’t these officers also carry pepper spray? Why don’t they use that instead when their trigger finger gets itchy?
2). Studies have shown that children who abuse animals grow up to abuse humans. How long before the shooting of people becomes much more frequent? If the person show’s up dead, there will most likely be only one side to the story – the LEO’s.
"Freemansburg police Chief George Bruneio arrived at the rear of 440 New St. at 5:15 p.m. Thursday, just in time to see officer Robert Lasso, a Taser in his hand, fighting two dogs, according to court papers.
Bruneio implored Lasso to shoot the dogs, but the next sound Bruneio heard was a gunshot and he watched Lasso fall to the ground. Bruneio then saw George Hitcho holding a shotgun with an expended shell jammed in its ejector port, police said.
Hitcho refused Bruneio's orders to drop his weapon, according to court papers, instead telling the chief, "He's breaking into my house." Hitcho then dropped the shotgun and Bruneio cuffed him and put him in a police cruiser before returning to aid Lasso.
Bruneio told Pennsylvania State Police at Belfast, who are investigating Lasso's murder, that Lasso had a head wound and what he described as shattered glass near the fallen officer.
Lasso was pronounced dead at St. Luke's Hospital in Fountain Hill less than a hour later. Lehigh County Coroner Scott Grim ruled the death a homicide.
According to court papers, Lasso was dispatched to 126 Washington St. at 5:06 p.m. for a disturbance. That address is separated from the rear of Hitcho's property by an alley, Peach Street. Lasso asked for assistance minutes later because he was being attacked by Hitcho's dogs, and Bruneio came to back him up, police said.
State police took Hitcho to the Belfast barracks, where he allegedly made several unsolicited comments.
According to court papers, Hitcho said the following:
• "I told him to get off my property."
• "He ain't coming on my property without a warrant."
• "He tried to kill my dogs and pointed a gun in my face."
• "I do not care if you are a cop or not."
• "Unbelievable.""
Produce the documentation of the claimed injuries.
We have an extremely well trained and even more loyal lab (4 years old). I kick myself for not having trained this family pet to hunt or service. She is pretty incredible. I send her out to find our kids in the neighborhood for dinner. We are her pack and she is friendly (and obedient) to all. All my neighbors know and love her. She is rarely distracted when we are playing or training. We often take her to nursing homes and sometimes hospitals because she is so well mannered...... Good Dog!
EXCEPT.... There have been two very explainable incidents. She is VERY loyal to her pack and protective of them, ESPECIALLY when the Alpha Male is not around (Me).
1) She hates the next door neighbor's dog. She plays great with 4 other dogs in our court. The neighbors dog attacked her a couple years ago and goes to the bathroom in our front yard. She will go after that dog IF it comes into our yard. Otherwise, she sits at the edge of the property line and growls a low and ugly guttural growl.
2) A door to door salesman yelled at my 5 year old son, playing in the front yard. My son was hitting wiffle balls in an imaginary game he had going all by himself. Apparently, my son pulled one hard and almost hit some guy going door to door selling cable/phone/internet. As my wife explained (from eye witness neighbor), he approached my son, waving a finger and yelling at him. My lab blew through the screen door from inside the house where she had been sitting and watching out the front screen door, over the porch and charged barking ferociously. Apparently she stopped at the end of the driveway as the salesman did a mad 50-yard dash across and down the street. I got to replace the lower screen in our storm door.
Moral of the story? Dogs are animals. Even the best dog is still an animal and they don't have the ability to explain themselves. It is often up to the home owners to protect them from themselves. It easy to immediately blame the cop. But it is not always easy to interpret "what kind of a dog" each is. I'm sure that salesman is convinced we own a vicious animal. Had the salesman been an off duty police officer walking through the neighborhood (and acted the same way), my dog would likely have been shot as she tried to defend a member of her pack.
Here’s the problem as I see it. The facts of each case are inevitably going to differ. But the problem is cultural.
In baseball culture it’s considered OK to scratch, spit and chew.
In Japanese culture it’s considered polite to bow.
In college fraternity culture drinking (even to excess) is considered cool.
In airline pilot culture it’s normal to speak in a Chuck Yeager drawl.
In cop culture, they are supposed to shoot dogs.
To me this is the real issue.
It’s time for these thugs with badges to start disappearing.
And if someone makes any aggressive moves towards a police dog, they are charged with the crime of assault on a police officer.
It’s time for the people to be completely FED UP with double standards that favor government agents over the people.
What the hell is this cop shooting this kid’s dog especially in front of him? What the hell are cops shooting family pets?
Sure, if any of them had any wounds that would have resulted from such an attack. The fact is, they did not, or they would have been reported on at the top of the story.
That the "injuries" sustained by the crazed killer were "reported to the police" instead of "treated at the hospital" is a tacit admission that no injuries were sustained, other than those inflicted upon the murdered family member.
This cop should have his testes flattened with a ball-peen hammer after his unit has been yanked out with vice-grips. Then society will never have to endure the insult of his trigger-happy progeny continuing his reign of terrorist assaults on innocent victims.
As a punitive measure, his eyes should be ripped out.
Apologizers and enablers like you, Jeffy, make certain that this plague will continue unabated until psycho's like this cop and ignorant cheering-sections like YOU are educated or incarcerated out of society as a whole. You filth.
IMHO.
;-\
I agree, dogs need to be trained to behave. As I understand this story, the dog had been fenced in but the boys went after a ball that got away from them and the dog slipped out with them.
The neighbors say it was a friendly dog and according to the story, the dog had turned and was leaving the cop and returning to the boys. That doesn’t sound like a dog hell bent on attack.
I guess my thoughts on the matter is that dog wasn’t attacking, bad manners, yeah but attacking—no. The cop was the attacker in this scenario, in my thinking anyhow.
I live in the country. I had called the local animal rescue and conversed with the owner. She told me that the prevalent attitude toward stray dogs is “a .22 to the head.” I do hear gunshots, but we have critters that hurt domestic animals and venomous snakes (that aren’t supposed to be shot). At one point, a neighbor’s visiting dog bounded to me with a “gift” (another dog’s foreleg with the scapula still attached). Who knows how that dog died? I also recall that selected inner city residents could be quite cruel to stray animals. Maladjustment is not specific to cops. I’ve also known some very kind and humane cops. (And one wise-guy state trooper I’d really like to paste.)
Your points are well taken.
I was not talking about stray dogs, however, but dogs on their owner’s property.
I’m also aware that there are many fine LEOs, but I would put it this way: While not every cop shoots people’s dogs on their owner’s property, it seems that only cops shoot people’s dogs on their owner’s property.
Huge numbers of people carry concealed - far outnumbering the number of police, and I’ve never heard of a single one doing this. It even seems a rare event for criminals during a break-in.
In contrast, the number of instances in which cops do so makes it sound almost like it is SOP. Certainly, thinking they are immune from any consequences, it seems to have become their default position.
I think the development of a militarized police state in this country, and the sort of people who are attracted to that as a career, is different from the way it once was in the US. I think the routine killing of dogs like this is one manifestation of the change, and a sobering one.
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I raised boxers with my kids, and they were fiercely loyal and protective of their kids, so I can see how the boxer might have thought he was doing his job.
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