Shooting Dogs.....

[Bear44]

OK guys, I'm going to be less than popular with this post.

First of all, I'm a serious dog lover. I have owned dogs all my life and have trained them professionally for over 25 years. What happened is a real tragedy.

I also understand how difficult the job of LE is. They put their life at risk on a regular basis and in many cases they die because they let their guard down for just a brief moment.

Now lets look at this situation from the perspective of the officer.
1) He is responding to an alarm, not serving a warrant. Announcing your presence is not required or desired. It's bad tactics and can get you killed. If there's a bad guy in the house you want to have as much surprise on your side as possible.
2) Regardless of why the dog is there, it is increasing the risk to the officer if there is an intruder. The barking dog is forcing him to split his attention between the dog and a potentially lethal threat.
3) He has no idea if the dog itself is a lethal threat.

Could he have backed the dog off with less than deadly force? Yes. Could he have done it without increasing the threat to himself from an intruder? No. The moment a cop stops taking a situation like this seriously will likely be when they die.

If this had happened to me and my dog I would also be inconsolable, but I would not blame the cop.

 

[Bass Akwards]

OK guys, I'm going to be less than popular with this post.

First of all, I'm a serious dog lover. I have owned dogs all my life and have trained them professionally for over 25 years. What happened is a real tragedy.

I also understand how difficult the job of LE is. They put their life at risk on a regular basis and in many cases they die because they let their guard down for just a brief moment.

Now lets look at this situation from the perspective of the officer.
1) He is responding to an alarm, not serving a warrant. Announcing your presence is not required or desired. It's bad tactics and can get you killed. If there's a bad guy in the house you want to have as much surprise on your side as possible.
2) Regardless of why the dog is there, it is increasing the risk to the officer if there is an intruder. The barking dog is forcing him to split his attention between the dog and a potentially lethal threat.
3) He has no idea if the dog itself is a lethal threat.

Could he have backed the dog off with less than deadly force? Yes. Could he have done it without increasing the threat to himself from an intruder? No. The moment a cop stops taking a situation like this seriously will likely be when they die.

If this had happened to me and my dog I would also be inconsolable, but I would not blame the cop.

There is more to this story.....

 

[Bass Akwards]

"I'm utterly and completely appalled at the way Cobb County has lied and now tried to demonize my baby as being a viscous animal. Even going as far as to lie on the police report. Luke has N E V E R bitten anyone or tried to bite anyone. Just another way to try and cover their mistakes. The case is closed according to them and they were just following protocol. PROTOCOL HAS GOT TO CHANGE. IT IS UNACCEPTABLE TO KILL MY DOG UNLESS HE IS KILLING YOU!!!!!!!!!! Thanks alot for doing your job CCPD. My life has been destroyed because of you"

 

[linebacker]

IMO---I understand that LEO's have procedures etc, but what was the cop thinking when he shot this dog?
It is a natural reaction for some dogs to be protective of their owners. The cop should have backed off and used another method if necessary besides shooting him. He apparently was trying to be a supercop with the "nothing can stop me" attitude like some are. I say a lawsuit should be filed against the cop and the city/county for the negligent shooting of this dog. If a criminal shoots a LEO dog, they will be charged as if it were an LEO. Therefore the homeowner should sue the badge off of this idiot.

 

[Nonliberal]

OK guys, I'm going to be less than popular with this post.

First of all, I'm a serious dog lover. I have owned dogs all my life and have trained them professionally for over 25 years. What happened is a real tragedy.

I also understand how difficult the job of LE is. They put their life at risk on a regular basis and in many cases they die because they let their guard down for just a brief moment.

Now lets look at this situation from the perspective of the officer.
1) He is responding to an alarm, not serving a warrant. Announcing your presence is not required or desired. It's bad tactics and can get you killed. If there's a bad guy in the house you want to have as much surprise on your side as possible.
2) Regardless of why the dog is there, it is increasing the risk to the officer if there is an intruder. The barking dog is forcing him to split his attention between the dog and a potentially lethal threat.
3) He has no idea if the dog itself is a lethal threat.

Could he have backed the dog off with less than deadly force? Yes. Could he have done it without increasing the threat to himself from an intruder? No. The moment a cop stops taking a situation like this seriously will likely be when they die.

If this had happened to me and my dog I would also be inconsolable, but I would not blame the cop.

Now, replace every word "dog" with "Homeowner"..
It still holds true from LEO point of view.

 

[GreenPanther]

OK guys, I'm going to be less than popular with this post.

First of all, I'm a serious dog lover. I have owned dogs all my life and have trained them professionally for over 25 years. What happened is a real tragedy.

I also understand how difficult the job of LE is. They put their life at risk on a regular basis and in many cases they die because they let their guard down for just a brief moment.

Now lets look at this situation from the perspective of the officer.
1) He is responding to an alarm, not serving a warrant. Announcing your presence is not required or desired. It's bad tactics and can get you killed. If there's a bad guy in the house you want to have as much surprise on your side as possible.
2) Regardless of why the dog is there, it is increasing the risk to the officer if there is an intruder. The barking dog is forcing him to split his attention between the dog and a potentially lethal threat.
3) He has no idea if the dog itself is a lethal threat.

Could he have backed the dog off with less than deadly force? Yes. Could he have done it without increasing the threat to himself from an intruder? No. The moment a cop stops taking a situation like this seriously will likely be when they die.

If this had happened to me and my dog I would also be inconsolable, but I would not blame the cop.

I disagree completely here.

While it may be bad tactics to announce yourself, you are still entering the home of another human being....through that back door. All this is from a call that is still unconfirmed whether it is legitimate or not.

Were there any signs of forced entry even? Also, were there other officers present? Cobb County has multiple officers respond to calls that are far less dangerous to entering a home.

A dog barking at a stranger attempting to enter the back door of HIS home is a normal thing. There is no reason the officer should assume otherwise. If the dog was not advancing, it was not a threat.....This is not war, and there is no excuse where this should be written off simply as a casualty of war type issue, due to the fact that an officer was losing their concentration on another lethal threat.

 

[GreenPanther]

Entering through the back door of a house that shows no signs of forced entry without announcing yourself is very dangerous in and of itself anyway. I still call poor procedure.

How would this have played out if the homeowner had been carrying on himself and noticed a glimpse of someone entering his home, coming toward him, dog barking, and seeing the gun come around the corner first. All this with no announcement that it was a friendly?

The officer facing a gun drawn at him from the unsuspecting homeowner.

 

[Sagan]

I've got a couple main problems with this story.

1. Responding to an alarm call, you find an aggressive dog defending the property (while you are yourself trying to gain entry) Your first thought is shoot it??? Really??? Couldn't possibly think that the dog set off the alarm or chased away the intruders already?

2. Dog is barking up a storm by now, and you don't think it's a good time to announce your presence?? Is it your first day on the job???

Edit: I am mainly pro cop, but stupid crap like this pisses me off.

 

[atl3128]

First off I want to say to the person who lost their dog on behalf of the LEO's that still believe we exist to protect and SERVE that I am deeply sorry for your loss. As a dog lover as well I know how attached one can become to them and how they literally become part of your family and it hurts when we loose one especially like this.

In my 10+ years as a LEO I have never shot a dog and the only time I have seen one shot it was a pit bull and it was an immediate threat to the deputy. It was on a felony warrant and the subject was in the house so he opened the door and sicked the pit on the deputy there was NO doubt the dog was going to attack so he was put down. I have personally been to several houses to serve warrants where a dog was extremely aggressive and it was dealt with using a heavy dose of pepper spray which ended the encounter quickly with out any shots fired.
I hate to second guess a fellow officer based on limited knowledge but this cop doesn't sound like he used good judgement nor does he sound like someone I would want backing me up. If you are responding to a potential burglary/ home invasion type event you want the element of surprise on your side which is why we turn our sirens off before we get there. I just don't see the justification in shooting a barking dog to maintain that element of surprise wouldn't firing off two or three shots kind of give you away? In my experience pepper spray works better than a taser because most dogs when pepper sprayed don't continue to bark they usually haul butt and rub their faces in the dirt were as one that has been tased usually barks far worse once the 5 second shock is over.

 

[Nonliberal]

Entering through the back door of a house that shows no signs of forced entry without announcing yourself is very dangerous in and of itself anyway. I still call poor procedure.

How would this have played out if the homeowner had been carrying on himself and noticed a glimpse of someone entering his home, coming toward him, dog barking, and seeing the gun come around the corner first. All this with no announcement that it was a friendly?

The officer facing a gun drawn at him from the unsuspecting homeowner.

See my post above^

and oh yeah, two chicks at the same time.