in the same respect that US Border Patrol has been told to stop stepping front of vehicles and thereby putting their lives in danger and thus "justifying" use of deadly force
Nice hyperbole. Shooting a dog in self defense is not the same as what you've just described, with no citation to show it ever happened. (Fits in just fine with the Outrage-Industrial Complex, though.)
Cops don't get to create situations and then pretend that their hand was forced in the matter
The cop didn't create the situation of the missing child, or the need to search for it. Neither is it likely that the cop "pretended" that he thought he was being assaulted by the dog.
Whether he showed good judgment in going into a fenced back yard with a dog in it is an open question that will hopefully be addressed by the investigation. But please, continue with the outrage.
Jut providing a link to show that the U.S. Border Patrol has, indeed, been stepping in front of vehicles in order to justify force. They were told not to, because bullets wouldnât injure the vehicles, and if they hurt the driver, the vehicles would then become a greater threat.
Agents have also shot (and thus killed) immigrants in the back.
The proposed existence of a so-called outrage-industrial complex online doesnât negate the validity of outrage in any given scenario. Itâs like people who think citing Godwinâs law because someone else made a Hitler reference automatically wins them an argument online. Itâs all about context. If thereâs a legitimate reason to be outraged, blame the source of the outrage and not the online social phenomenon that results. If cops are shooting dogs in arguably unwarranted scenarios, thereâs reason to be outraged.
With the amount of facts available in this scenario so far, the cop had the choice not to enter the backyard and thus could have prevented the entire situation. The fence in the video didnât look so high that the cop couldnât have looked over it before entering. So yeah, with the available facts, unless the cop has video showing that the dog left the backyard and attacked him without provocation, Iâd say this was preventable. If it was preventable, then only the copsâ actions caused the death of the dog. So the guy whose dog got killed by the cop seems perfectly justified in his outrage.
And if you want the personal experience to goes into my perspective, Iâve work for a law enforcement agency and have witnessed cops first hand encounter hostile dogs and they figured out how to back away without having to resort to shooting the dog. Unless the dog was standing between the cop and the missing kid and threatening the cop or the kid, the shooting wasnât justified, period.
If a regular citizen had gotten into the backyard and had felt threatened by the dog, would you say that the citizen was stupid for going back there or would you say an armed, trespassing citizen would be warranted to shoot the dog in its own yard because they felt threatened? How does the cop being a cop make them special to warrant killing an animal because of their own bad decisions?
The cop created the situation that searching that backyard required entering it and then shooting the dog who likely felt threatened by his presence. If the cop canât figure out a way to handle an understandably hostile dog without resorting to the use of lethal force, he shouldnât be allowed near human beings with a firearm.
But please, continue with the justification of violence. It makes for such pithy insults. Someone must be wrong on the internet.
Jules: Pigs are filthy animals. I donât eat filthy animals.
Vincent: Bacon tastes gooood. Pork chops taste gooood.
Jules: Hey, sewer rat may taste like pumpkin pie, but Iâd never know âcause I wouldnât eat the filthy motherfucker. Pigs sleep and root in shit. Thatâs a filthy animal. I ainât eat nothinâ that ainât got sense enough to disregard its own feces.
Vincent: How about a dog? Dogs eats its own feces.
Jules: I donât eat dog either.
Vincent: Yeah, but do you consider a dog to be a filthy animal?
Jules: I wouldnât go so far as to call a dog filthy but theyâre definitely dirty. But, a dogâs got personality. Personality goes a long way.
Vincent: Ah, so by that rationale, if a pig had a better personality, he would cease to be a filthy animal. Is that true?
Jules: Well weâd have to be talkinâ about one charming motherfuckinâ pig. I mean heâd have to be ten times more charminâ than that Arnold on Green Acres, you know what Iâm sayinâ?
âYou donât know what that dog did.â But I do know what my dog did in a similar situation. He barked at the police officer climbing over the fence into my yard. What did the police officer do? He stopped, looked around, didnât see blood dripping from the dogâs jowls, and continued on. He didnât shoot my dog.
You really seem overly eager to assume that a)the dog is ferocious, rather just a normal dog with normal dog territorial instincts, b) that the officer had reasonable suspicion that the dog was guarding a kidnap victim, and c) that the dog owner hates cops, rather than that he hates the guy who shot his dog (see the difference there?).
You have no evidence of either, only suppositions. It seems as if you love cops and hate every one who criticizes their actions, no matter how unjustifed the action, and how justified the criticism.
âI say this as a childless (thank god!)â And why would you even say this? Are you assuming he would be an incapable parent because heâs upset at a senseless killing and shows empathy? Really, explain this.
I agree that if it were my house Iâd do something foolish and probably be arrested like the camera man should have been. So, the majority here is in agreement that if it were the cop or the dog, the cop should have been the one lying dead in the backyard? Protect and serve oneâs own ass? That seems to be a growing theme in the U.S.
So your reaction to someone being heartbroken about their innocent dog getting shot is to murder some other innocent dogs to make the shooter feel bad? Iâm not sure thatâs really a great solution.
A different dog and a different cop were involved in a different situation and it ended differently, so thereforeâŚyou can assume exactly nothing about this situation.
You. donât. know. what. happened.
Maybe the dog was being perfectly calm. Maybe it wagged its tail and ran up to sniff the officer, which appeared threatening to a cop who didnât know dogs or had a history of being attacked by them. Or maybe it lunged at the cop, barking and snarling, which, as a fellow dog owner, I know is mostly for show, saying âYouâre freaking me out and I NEED YOU TO LEAVE,â as opposed to actual intent to harm, in which case the dog skips the barking show and simply bites. These are all possible outcomes, some of which include legitimate concern about the officerâs life, some of which do not.
My point about being childless was simply that my natural bias does not tend towards the welfare of children and cops. It is a technique to imbue more objectivity than posters like you are granting me, because IâŚlove cops and hate everyone else, or maybe I think a more nuanced approach to a complex situation is called for. Sorry you didnât make the inference.
If the dog was so vicious, what made the cop think the kid was in the back yard with the dog?
FFS, there needs to be a criminal case here. More and more Iâm thinking the problem doesnât stem from the police force itself but from lead prosecutors/district attorneys refusing to bring police up on criminal charges. That alone will create a police force that feels above the law simply because they really are.
You donât either, which is why I called out your assumptions. And the rest of your reply just doesnât make sense.
âMy point about being childless was simply that my natural bias does not tend towards the welfare of children and cops. It is a technique to imbue more objectivity than posters like you are granting meâ
âThank god heâs childlessâ does not imbue objectivity.
Iâve never heard an answer, so Iâll just put this question here.
How many police have been killed by dogs in the history of the US?
If the answer is 0, I canât see how killing an animal who âthreatensâ you with nothing more than bodily harm isnât disproportionate and inappropriate force. I donât care if the dog is rabid, a dog bite threat should not be responded to with summary execution. Because if thatâs the case, replace ârabid dogâ with âstaph infected prostituteâ, and you could argue for the exact same response, which is patently absurd.
I am childless, by choice, and a dog owner, also by choice, therefore a reader may, if he or she wanted, grant me a shade more objectivity than they might if the situation were its converse. I donât know how to further clarify that for you.
Fatal dog attacks in the United States are a small percentage of the relatively common occurrences of dog bites. While at least 4.5 â 4.7 million Americans (2%) are bitten by dogs every year, only about 0.0002% of these (less than 0.00001% of the U.S. population) result in death, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which published a special report on the subject in 2000.
So it wouldnât surprise me that that answer is that there has never been a documented case of a police officer being killed or dying due to complications from a dog bite. Maybe if police had proportional fear, theyâd shoot the cars they see, as Iâm sure theyâre more likely to die in a car accident than be killed by a dog.
Also, maybe the police should be training with the USPS. They seem to not only have to engage with threatening dogs, but they manage to do their jobs and never have to open fire. Retreating from delivery is rarely an option for them, either.
Thanks for your research on officer fatalities from dog bites (and complications thereof)
From a vigorous discussion in an earlier BoingBoing thread, it would appear that about 1/3 of police fatal accidents stem from âinteractionsâ with âviolatorsâ and by extension, that about 2/3 of all police deaths are due to transportation incidents.
So, yes, far more likely to be killed in a car accident than killed by a dog.
Police should have the right to protect themselves from violent dogs. Indeed there are are people who keep violent pets and donât control them and they end up hurting other people.
The problem here is too many police are willing to shoot a dog with little to no provocation. Iâve heard of cases of shooting at dogs running AWAY. The âitâs coming right for usâ defense is used and most of the time it is ruled as a reasonable action and the cop and the department are protected from any civil suits. Its seems only in rare case when it is recorded and the cop acts with clear malice that anything is done.
