Felony Stop Leaves Family Traumatized

Herald-Citizen ^ | 01/02/03 | Mary Jo Denton

[Republic of Texas]

Littering must be a felony in Tenn.

[S.O.S121.500]

"My guess would be two weeks paid suspensionvacation.

[Republic of Texas]

Sometimes the sobbing children can be a clue...

[Swordmaker]

The officers were told the car had a wallet fly off of the car that had a lot of money in it. If a dispatcher, or the cop that heard that call, turned that into a felony, then THAT is where the first screw up happened.

I agree. The officers at the scene can only operate on the information they have been given. However, you cannot treat a potential FELONY ARREST like you treat a traffic infraction stop. If they were told that this was a potential carjacking with a hostage possibility, then that is handled completely differently than a speeding stop.

I assure you that simply because a shot was fired, the officer who fired it WILL have to go before the local review board to justify the use of force, even if it was "just a dog." Police do NOT use their firearms on whims.

[Joe Hadenuf]

Bulldogs, both of them.

Bull dogs are pretty tame creatures. Personally, I wouldn't shoot someones dog, unless it bit me first. That's right, I would wait until the dog actually bit me before I unloaded on it.

I personlly couldn't live with myself shooting someones family dog, before it even bit me....

Now if a couple of pit bulls were bearing down on me, that would be a different story......

[babygene]

Yes...

There are hundreds of millions of citizens, and hundreds of thousands of police.

If police weren't a problem, we wouldn't be hearing of all of these cases of abuse. How many cases have you heard about where vedios have been taken of abuse? If this were rare, how, many would you expect to see? What are the chances of someone recording a rare event? I would suggest close to zero...

[Concentrate]

I was not at all aware of a charge of capital murder being applied to someone who kills a police dog - you learn something new every day. Which states have this ridiculous law on the books? I can't imagine the ACLU and gang allowing anyone to actually go to jail - much less be executed - on such a charge.

Why should that be a surprise?

It's legal to dismember and suck out the brains of a child on his birthdate, so why should you be surprised? Let's get honest here. The ACLU defends only parts the first amendment, but not the second. And why not?

[HairOfTheDog]

See, the ony way you can justify this is to exaggerate the scenario. First it was a angry dog, and now it might have been a carjacking.

Work with the facts presented. Certainly we don't know everything, but lets not just throw away the facts given in the article.

I know the cop will be reviewed... and I will even grant that he may now feel remorse or regret, assuming he is human. But he may never make a good cop.

[HairOfTheDog]

Your rationale is backwards. If this were common it wouldn't be news. And the fact that people all over the country are now reading an article about an incident in Cookeville Tennessee, does not make it an epidemic.

[babygene]

" which doesn't prove that the majority hold such a view."

And I didn't say that the majority hold such a view... If a small percentage hold that view, we are in deep sh!t.

It all comes ndown to training and screening.

[weaponeer]

You can go into a high school and if you pay attention you can pick out the boys who will end up on the police force. Look for the kids who are not very popular, kids who are picked on for one reason or another, or kids that just don’t seem to fit in. Filter that by not being academic achievers and you have the next crop pf police.

I can verify that. I grew up in a small town (pop. 8000) in upstate NY. We had one major bully in high school. Beat me up pretty bad once. After graduation in 1966 he gets in some trouble with the law and decides to join the army. I went on to college, ROTC, and into the army in 1970. Didn't go back to the old hometown for many, many years.

So I finally go back to the old town for my 30th high school reunion, all the way from California. Who do I end up sitting next to at the banquet, but my ole buddy, the bully. I got his life story. Turns out that in the army he was an MP. After discharge right after the Viet Nam war, he goes home and joins our little town police dept. Turns out that another of my classmates (leader of the local hoods in HS) got elected mayor, and appoints bully as Chief of Police! So the Mayor, the Chief, and the City Attorney (another classmate of mine) are running the city into the ground until the State DOJ nails them on felony bribery and corruption charges, and puts them away for awhile. All three were at the reunion while on probation.

Turned out that bully and I had a bunch of drinks and had a good old time swappin' war stories that night. But he still thinks like a bully.

[Swordmaker]

There were kids in the vehicle for cryin' out loud, and they followed it for awhile, so they should have been able to read their situation better.

Read the article, Hair... the kids were in the car following the car that was stopped. The car that was stopped had a man, a woman, and a 17 year old boy (What was the age of the younger sniper?) along with the two dogs. I know several 17 year olds who are 250 pounds and six foot six. Just how were they supposed to "read" this situation?

I would be very surprised if there is a "policy where a family on vacation is accidently thought to be a felon because his wallet fell off his car." There probably IS, however a policy on how to do a "felony stop" and a policy on when to use deadly force against a potentially dangerous animal. In this case, there was a series of events and decisions made which resulted in the officers at the scene being instructed to affectuate a "felony stop" on the car. They did that, probably following their training and with proper procedures, and unfortunately, a family pet was killed. This is tragic... but it does not mean that the officers, acting in the line of duty, according to their training, are "jackbooted thugs" operating as "loose cannons" or "cowboys."

I am quite surprised at the Freepers on here who, because they sympathize with the family and feel bad for the dog, are willing to ruin the careers and lives of police officers who, most likely, were following proper procedures and WHO, had the event actually been a carjacking, would have been in exteme danger and hailed as heroes for rescuing a potential victim.

Bad cases make bad law.

[babygene]

OMG... Bull dogs?

[blackdog]

Digital, modem, auto exec to email server would suffice. Either that or digital storage in the car. I agree, tape would be a search and destroy item if they even caught a whiff of the possibility.

[Swordmaker]

See, the ony way you can justify this is to exaggerate the scenario.

Hair, I am NOT exagerating. Such things happen, sadly, quite often. The police CANNOT safely assume that such events ARE innocent... for their own safety and that of the public, they have to assume worse than innocent. The police responded as if it MIGHT have been a carjacking because carjackings DO HAPPEN and people DO GET KILLED. An attacking or advancing dog may be innocent (actually all dogs are innocent) but it is still a very real threat and potentially extremely dangerous.

I assure you that the dogs that I have owned would react extremely aggressively and angrily if one of their people were being treated as the police were treating this family. The police cannot yell "Halt, or I will fire" to a dog... he cannot understand and will continue his agressive behavior until someone with authority HE recognizes stops him.

Someone posted that he, personally, would allow the dog to bite him first, before taking action. That's nice, but the police do not have that luxury... nor should they be expected to take a potential arm-breaking bite before acting. Police officers are permitted BY POLICY to use deadly force to prevent injury to themselves or others... they do not have to wait for the injury first.

[IronJack]

I'm doing one. Strictly unauthorized, of course. I'll try to FReepmail you when I'm done.

[DAnconia55]

I, however, take another pathway on this. If I were pulled over and told to leave the car, knowing I had two unleashed dogs in the car, I would CLOSE THE CAR DOOR MYSELF as I got out. I would do so knowing dogs can jump out and run into traffic.

With hostile goons training a weapon on you at a felony stop? You'd move your hands?

Tell me where to send the flowers.

[jeremiah]

Two weeks is not enough, they should probably be retired with disability. Full pay and bennys, for being traumatized by the publicity that this case will pull.

[babygene]

My friend, I am from Idaho. We don't have a lot of crime, and abot half of what we hear involves problems with the police.

Consedering that police are a very small percentage of the population at large, the police stories seem excisive... At least from here.

[HairOfTheDog]

Well, you kinda even things out. You want to keep calling this a carjacking, and I think it was a bad call by these particular cops involved. Others think all cops are cowboys... Its about all been said I guess.