Police Shoot Dog - Is this needed?

This DISTURBING video shows the moment police shot dead a dog as his owner was being arrested. Join in the conversation at:

The dog's owner, Leon Rosby, was taking video of police officers in Hawthorne, California, on Sunday evening as they surrounded a house where two people had been robbed at gunpoint in a non-related incident. The question that much of the world is asking is was I needed? Did the cop have to fire the number of shots he did, even when the dog was down? So now we ask you, was this an act of self defence of a Cop with a gun gone too far and is it an act of animal cruelty. Join in the conversation below

 

The owner killed the dog.

 

The number of shots fired does not matter. Most people only know guns from Hollywood movies. One bullet is not going to stop a person (or animal) in most cases. If you take the concealed carry class like I did, they teach you that depending on the caliber you shoot, multiple shots are usually required to stop someone. Furthermore, in the heat of the moment there is not time to shot once, see if it stop the dog, and then take more shots. The officers are trained to shoot until the threat stops. In this case, that is exactly what happened. You continue to shoot until whatever is risking your life stops risking your life. Despite what you see in Hollywood, one .40 caliber shot to the stomach is not going to stop a big guy if he is determined enough.

Ever wonder why in police shootouts when the guy gets shot by cops, why they shoot the guy so many times? It isn't because they are bad shots, or they are all trigger happy. They will continue to shoot the guy until his actions are stopped and he hits the ground.

 

It's amazing what some people can talk themselves in to believing. . . Yeah, the officer had no other choice but to shoot the dog 4 times and kill it because his life was in danger.

You sound like one of those people that act like the police never make mistakes, which is pure nonsense! Something you'll change your mind on as you get older.. (hopefully)

 

Hey, this isn't the right place for this story. I know. Still, something crazy happened Sunday morning! A Pit Bull jumped right in my car!! I love animals. Although to be honest, I can be a little leery of Pit Bulls. But I was driving, there were cars on both sides, going both directions. She was in the middle of the road. You could tell she was scared. She was pacing, and limping on her back leg. I had to stop. I decided to just wing it. Anyway, so I stop in the road and get out of my car. I'm just standing there looking at her. She started coming towards me, and I started talking to her. She started wagging her tail. My drivers side door was still open. She just goes right past me and jumps in the passenger side of my car. If she could talk, she would have said, "Let's go!" I think that was so funny. I was kind of nervous. Although the worst thing that happened is she kept resting her head on where I shift my car, moving it out of the gear. She was huge and muscular. I couldn't go home, not with her. Then I took her to a veterinary hospital and also talked them into boarding her for a day. But it turned out she had a microchip! The owner said she got out the evening before and he had been really worried. He seemed like a nice guy. The dogs name is Sasha. I've been so happy for how it turned out.

 

Great, Story Brings a bit of happiness to this threat - at least you didnt grab for a gun

 

Redtarget has got a concealed weapon license and training, he would have drawn his weapon so fast and shot the dog right between the eye four times before the dog could even limp once toward him or wag her tail. Then he would wake up and realize that he is not Rambo and it was just a dream.

 

I'm just doing what no one else is, looking from the other side. I didn't say there was no other choice, I said he was justified when the dog lunged at him. Everyone else is the complete opposite, saying that these cops are terrible because a dog died. My entire point all along has been that had the dog owner just minded his own damn business, none of this would have happened.

I guess I can put you in the same camp as the people that think death threats are warranted by this situation? No matter what the police did, had the dog bitten an officer it would have been killed by animal control anyway. From the cops perspective, as the dog lunged at him for the 2nd time, it is better to stop the dog from biting you than see what happens.

 

Perhaps an easier way for you to think about this is to imagine the police were not police but rather paid private security. Imagine them handling the job in the same way the police did, and imagine the public outcry at the company from the video after the dog was shot when there were so many alternate solutions that didn't wind up with a dead dog. What would the private company do?

1) Apologize
2) Pay damages
3) Fire the guards in question

Why would a private company do those things? Simple really. They would have to in order to avoid a public relations disaster that could bankrupt the company.

Why don't the police do the same? Simple really. They don't have to because the police unions the single most powerful lobby that determines the outcome of District Attorney elections. District attorney prosecutes the cops, the District Attorney loses his job next election cycle.

Another reason they don't is due to the very same Union rules that keep child molesting and other horrible teachers on the state payroll for a decade's worth of appeals while they contest their suspension/termination. Police chiefs couldn't just fire a cop for misconduct, even if they wanted to. That is why practically every internal investigation results without finding misconduct on the side of the police.

Its the difference between Dog the bounty hunter kicking in your front door and any man in government uniform. If you are not a wanted criminal and "The Dog" comes battering in your front door thinking there is a criminal inside your home, he gets two in the chest and one between the eyes, and it is a just shoot. The cop does the same thing, like in Henderson, and he can do practically anything short of raping your wife in front you without consequence. You shoot him, as is your constitutional right, and you will wind up in the morgue right along side him.

 

Seemed fitting to provide a short from one of my favorite films.

 

Cops get yelled at all the time - it sucks, and it's not fair, but these cops went really overboard.

The police cuff the guy and the dog starts to bark. Did any of the cops have a sufficient IQ above room temperature to figure out in advance that the dog was going to become a problem? Were they able to see that the dog could jump out? Why didn't they ask the owner to restrain the dog first, as is proper police procedure? And when the dog jumped out, why didn't the police just back away from the owner so the dog would stay with thee owner and leave the police alone?

A simple application of pepper spray would have handled the dog - and that is how police are trained to handle dogs. That's police procedure.

There is no doubt the guy being arrested was behaving like a jackass. But the police did not follow procedure.

 

In my view, it wasn't necessary. The police should have taken precautions as they knew what type of dog the owner had. The owner should have ensured the dog was properly secured, as he should know the risks with his dog. They were both in error. I'm very sad for the dog, it probably didn't understand the difference between police and gangbanger, just wanted to protect its owner.