Civilized countries acknowledge that animals are not simply legal property, though.
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Let the ASPCA know your concerns. It should be theirs, too. I know I will.
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Cops are nothing if unpredictable. The dog displayed no aggressive behavior whatsoeverâthe same way a 72 year old woman was jumped on by 3 of Texasâ finest last week at the State House.
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This is the most ridiculous thing I have ever seen and then they wonder why the public hates cops.
They could have gave this guy time to get his dog back in the car but instead they wanted just to shoot something. If there had of been nobody outside they would have shot the man instead. This is just straight police brutality and these cops should be under the damn jail. It is bad enough they cuffed the black dude for no reason. That is exactly the reason I hate PIGS!!! There were other people outside with cameras. Why did they just get the black guy? Racist fuâng PIGS!!!.
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Is there a place in civilized society for policemen to be mauled by dogs while doing their jobs?
I think itâs fair to argue that maybe they should have tried pepper spray first, but as much as I dislike seeing dogs shot, I dislike seeing human beings â any human beings, regardless of the circumstances â mauled by dogs even more.
These are the kinds of decisions people have to make in the heat of the moment. Is every person a dog expert? Probably not. But my estimation was correct â the study I cited shows that this dog breed is âmore aggressive than average toward strangersâ. And visibly â this is a large, muscular dog, it is agitated because its owner is under perceived attack, it is not on any leash, and it lunged towards the officers after some initial interaction.
Is it unfortunate? Absolutely. Could it have been handled better? Probably. Were these policemen going out of their way to shoot dogs at any opportunity because they are state-sanctioned sadists? Based on what I saw in that video, no.
The dog was properly leashed before the owner was arrested on trumped up charges by the officers that killed his dog. And when the owner realized he was about to arrested, he tried to secure his dog in his car. Unfortunately, the windows were down, and I doubt taking a moment to hop in the driverâs seat and put the keys in the ignition so he could put the windows up wouldâve gotten a good reaction from these trigger happy cops.
As for the âoh hey if you were a cop, what would you doâ thing, thatâs easily answered. The first thing Iâd do would be my job, which means not arresting a guy for something thatâs perfectly legal in the state of California. But if you think thatâs too much to expect of a police officer, then Iâd give the guy who poses no threat and is in no way resisting a moment to secure his dog. If thatâs too much to expect, Iâd give the owner a chance to get his dog secured again after the dog jumped out the back window of the care. And if thatâs too much to expect, Iâd refrain from shooting the dog to death until the dog actually did something threatening.
This is on the cops, 100%.
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Whoa, donât pat yourself on the back so quickly. Your estimation? While the singular study you have indicates Rottweilers are more aggressive than other breeds, it is just one study, and thatâs beside the question of how valid many breed aggression studies are*. Further, given that dog aggression is extremely uncommon, even doubling the odds of Rottweiler attack means that itâs⌠a bit less extremely uncommon. Finally, it did not appear agitated, and it did not âlungeâ.
* Breed aggression studies often take only raw genetics into account when evaluating the breed, and do not take into account societal trends in the raising and training of different breeds.
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Itâs fine if we disagree on the interpretation of what was seen in the video. Iâm just an average person with an average knowledge of dogs. I donât even have a dog avatar! 
Nobody likes seeing living things get hurt. But I also recognize that in the heat of the moment, sometimes critical safety decisions have to be made, and they canât always be perfect.
Youâre right, but we also need to evaluate the decisions made and determine which are acceptable and which are not. If the police are not being trained on how to deal with dogs, that needs correction. If they are, and this officer made the decisions he made, I would not trust him to properly evaluate the risk of other situationsâheâs dangerous and needs to find another line of work not involving firearms and the public.
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The âheat of the momentâ situation you keep mentioning to excuse the police was entirely their own creation. You cannot, through sheer incompetence or malice, create a potentially dangerous situation, and then use the existence of that situation to declaim all responsibility for your subsequent actions.
The dog was unleashed because the owner was arrested on trumped up charges and not given a chance to secure him. Once the dog was loose, the police had enough time before the dog even got close to anyone to give the owner a chance to secure him.
Once again, 100% the fault of the police.
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This sounds remarkably like the justification for the Iraq War. And the Afghanistan War. And the Patriot Act. And any number of other decisions based on fear, uncertainty and doubt.
We cannot live in a society ruled by fear.
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That was exactly my point â we cannot live in a society where we are afraid to act decisively to protect human beings when an animal is attacking.
I suppose itâs a matter of interpretation. And probably easier to interpret when the animal in question isnât Manâs Best Friend.
Yeah, precisely. The shooting wasnât an isolated case of poor judgement, but the end of a long chain of atrocious decision making by the police.
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At this point I have to ask who youâre even arguing with.
No one is making any points that bear even a passing resemblance to the ones youâre rebutting.
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It isnât as if any rational person still believes the USA is a free country. Think about it. No-warrant wire taps, indefinite detention of citizens without charges, approval of rendition of prisoners and torture, stop and frisk without probable cause, search and seizure without a warrant, no-knock entry, confiscation and destruction of cameras that might have been used to film police acting illegally, police brutality, police shootings that go without investigation, managed news, and the civil-rights destroying âPatriotâ Act.
Acts of police behaving illegally, with shootings, Tasers, and unwarranted violence now appear almost daily. Rarely are these offenses punished. Most often âan investigationâ is claimed, but soon forgotten.
In addition, the USA, with 5% of the world population, has 25% of all of the prisoners in the world. That means the USA has the most people in prison of any nation in history. Even by percentage of residents incarcerated, not just sheer numbers. USA is # 1
Does any of that sound like a free country?
As Dwight D. Eisenhower said about communism, "Itâs like slicing sausage. First they out off a small slice. That isnât worth fighting over. Then they take another small slice that isnât worth fighting over. Then another and another. Finally, all you have left is the string and that isnât worth fighting over, either.
Not to apologize for the cops behavior and not to mention why they were even arresting the guy in the first place, dogs can be unpredictable. Iâve had several dogs, large and small, and sometimes a normally sweet dog will bite someone if they feel their owner or territory is being threatened. I think the cops should have known that arresting the guy and getting between him and his dog was a potentially volatile situation. Once the dog feels threatened and becomes aggressive, all bets are off, especially with cops who are trained to take control of the situation and use force if violence is imminent. All in all, this was a tragic situation that could have been easily avoided.
Never met a rottie wasnât soft as clarts personally. Met lots of nasty cops though.
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that is a shame that the police had to shoot that dog wen there was no reason what so ever i hope that department gets shut down⌠how would you like if someone shot your dog while you were being handled by a bunch of inbread rednecks that need to think about humans and there companions than there fucking guns they are whats wrong with this country if i was there i would sue for everything they got they wouldnt have a pot to piss inâŚdamn pigs
nobody likes seeing people get mauled by dogs
Hey, speak for yourself.
Dogs have a much cushier job than cops. Easy to be happy go lucky when you arenât dealing with criminals and troubled folk all day long, isnât it?
