Posted on 10/23/2008 4:31:28 PM PDT by LibWhacker
http://reason.com/blog/show/129620.html
Not me
With that said, the deputy was not being attacked. The dog had run past him by the time he shot. If that had been an attack, they would have been on the ground.
I want to know what charges are being brought against the deputy and the sheriff?
This cop shot the dog in the driveway.
You think it's fine for cops to pull up into someone's yard and cap their dog?
The deputy should be hung.
Yep.
It does indeed look like the cop was trying to impress someone (indeed, maybe himself!). My guess is it was a vain effort to maintain a half-inch h*rd-*n.
Shows bad judgment, and one wonders how he'll be able to maintain any rapport with people in that area/town.
More likely than not, if this guy's predilection of shooting first and answering questions later is not addressed forthwith by both the department and the town, this type of thing will come back to bite them in the ass big-time.
Just my $.02...
CA....
I believe too many of them use COPS episodes for training films.
Counter point question of the day. Well posed.
The cop should be fired at the very least, and then sued for every penny they can get.
LOL!
No, I can't see their point at all. First of all, they better have a valid warrant and announce their presence. We will then place the dog in a safe place. Crash your way in like jack booted thugs, and you take your chances--with the dog and with me.
Definitely not a dog bred to be aggressive.
I don’t get that at all ,, a patrolman in a small town doesn’t know every single road in the county??
Not unnecessarily. I grew up on the end of a half mile dead end road. I don't I saw a police car more than a 100 yards down that road in the dozen years I lived there.
If an officer was called out to one of the houses living on a long driveway off of the road I have little doubt they would have had to stop and ask directions from one of the neighbors along the way. Notice that the house is a way back off of the main road. In such areas the mailboxes are often clustered together on the main road, not by each driveway. You often can't see house numbers from the road.
I think the dogs owner had it 100% right ,, he was playing big bad-ass for his relative...
Look at the video. He walks casually towards the house. Stops and pauses for maybe a second, then starts backing up. He barely gets his gun out before the dog gets to him, and shoots the dog at point blank and the dog is still charging at him when shot.
There doesn't seem to be any evidence of premeditation there.
Despite what the dog owner said he also hadn't backed up far enough to get behind his car door, and it's pretty questionable if he could have gotten the door open and between him and the dog before it got to him unless he turned and ran immediately when it first came at him. Once he paused to evaluate the situation and started backing up, it appears to me the opportunity to jump back in the car was lost.
The dog was being very aggressive. The dog didn't appear to be running up and stopping back a short distance and barking it's head off like dogs usually do. It was charging right at him and didn't appear to be slowing at all. It also looks to me like he shot the dog at pretty much the last possible moment.
His choices seemed to be to shoot or wait and see if the dog turned at the last possible moment, or if it wouldn't really bite him. Or to just take the bite since I don't thing this dog would have taken a big bite out of him. Of course that's easier to say in hindsight from the other end of a security camera than with the dog charging at you.
A dozen years ago I doubt many police officers would have shot the dog. Though I bet a lot of rural police officers back then also got bitten, and then the dogs go put down.
Pepper spray would have been a better choice, but it doesn't look like he had much time to consider his options.
I don't approve of what the officer did, but it also doesn't seem completely unreasonable to me either.
I feel sorry for the dog and the dog owner.
If this had been some teenage girl selling magazines I wonder if we would have heard about the mean dog biting the poor young girl. However since it's a big, tough police officer we just expect him to only react with force after the dog has bitten him.
I agree. The poor dog was running past the dam@ cop. I would be furious.
It gets better.
The cops put out their lie first and when they found out she had it all on video they offered her money for silence, then “advised” her not to ever show the video to anyone.
The whole sheriff’s department is complicit in this and all of them need to be fired and jailed.
There’s a contingent of “cops can do no wrong” JBT boot-lickers here on FR who will tell you yes they certainly have that right.
They’re as big a bunch of morons as the idiot cops they defend.
There was no reason to shoot that dog, the cop is guilty! Send him to the pound!
There’s a lot of ‘pro-cop’ instinct on the right. However, there’s clearly times when cops are acting bad. This is clearly one of them. In fact, the cop should do time.
If someone did that to my dog or cat, the cop had better go rushdie.
Yep, I grew up in that part of the country and everybody there knows when you pay a visit to some stranger out in the boonies you wait a minute before you get out of the car to see if there are dogs, and if there are, you wait until the owner comes out and calls them off before you exit your vehicle. You DON’T just jump out of the car and start blasting away at the first dog you see. Country dogs tend to be more territorial than city dogs. It seems this damned pervert with his badge just wanted to kill a dog that day.
One poster at the website said, “Just more proof that if there were good cops they’d arrest the bad ones,” and I’ve gotta say I’m feeling a little receptive to that argument right about now.
I watched the video for a second time. I believe that you are wrong. The dog was running toward the car, but not directly attacking the perp. Instead of spending time pulling his gun, he could have made it back to open the car door. I’d guess that he is not a (pet) dog person. The dog likely wanted to knock him over to lick his face. Whenever I approach an unfamiliar rural homestead and get out of the car, I first get the dog situation straightened out. Most dogs will let you out of your car, but there has to be a meeting of the minds first (this can sometimes take a couple of minutes).
After reading you analysis, I went back and watched the clip - and I think you are wrong.
That dog did nothing more agressive than run up to lick him.
You need to visit an optometrist if that’s what you saw on the video.
Who knows, maybe you have a big career as a baseball umpire ahead of you with eyesight that keen.....
This was just a rural kill for thrill shooting. Kind of makes me wonder where this deputy was when those two kids were shot on a rural road in Oklahoma last June. I know the counties aren’t exactly close, but state authorities might just want to check the ballistics on this deputy’s weapon.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.