Sorry it took me so long to follow up. In NY, off duty police officers are required to carry their off duty pistol where ever they go. So yes, the park, the public rest room and the beach. (I’m not sure if Disney Land would permit it… they may have their own rules for such things). The thing is, a cop is a cop, off duty or not. If a police officer witnesses a crime in action, even if he’s wearing bermuda shorts and a tank top, he is required by the rules of his department to do his duty. That’s why he has to have the gun. I’m not a 2nd amendment freak, just answering your question.
Also as an aside, the whole clip emptying thing… you can never, ever know how you are going to be in a real life gun firing situation as a cop. So to say you don’t want ‘that type of guy’ out there based on how he reacts when having to fire his weapon is kinda unrealistic. I’ve known 20, 30, and 40 year veterens of the NYPD who have never, ever, fired their gun in the line of duty. Just something to think about.
unclebeer must have been typing at the same time as me. I guess he wasn’t required to have it… shows you what speculation can do.
bad llama (insert sound of 8 or 9 shots into foaming at the mouth llama)
Well, it was a 9/11 rescue dog. Maybe CoCo was hiding a dead body in his pocket?
Sorry. I’ll go now.
Judging by the fact that they threatened to charge the owner with a violation of the leash law if he pursued a civil case, I would guess that this was not an off-leash park. So, yes, the owner was at fault in that respect. His dog could just have easily run into the street and been killed.
However, I do find it disturbing that the officer shot at the dog 8 or 9 times. Pardon the pun, but that seems like overkill. If they don’t fire warning shots because of the risk of it going astray, what’s the possibility of that happening when several shots are fired? Granted adrenalin may have been pumping and all that but shouldn’t they be trained to control that better because of the possibility of shots going astray? I can also see the pumping adrenalin in a situation where you have a person aiming/firing a weapon at you, but with an animal that once hit is likely to be down for good and no longer a threat why is it necessary to keep shooting?
As for whether the dog was being threatening or just exhibiting herding or play behavior we may never know without an unbiased witness. I tend not to trust anything with Chow in it, but that doesn’t mean the dog was being aggressive, he may have been trying to play and if kids were squealing he may have thought they were playing…
I will also agree with other posters that police officers do not seem to be trained in judging animal behavior which can often lead to unfortunate situations like this one or This one . Now, that was a truly unfortunate and avoidable mistake.
Would you folks be so quick to defend this person if he were NOT a policeman?
Maybe you’d start questioning that citizen’s shooting skills, his mental sharpness, state of mind, etc.
Would the police have treated an armed citizen the same way they treated the police officer? “Good work Mr Citizen !! You wisely assessed a potentially lethal situation and took appropriate action.” Or would they have “booked him” for reckless endangerment"?
Incidentally, I am in favor of allowing police (not forcing them) to carry a pistol wherever they want to. Not that they should be a policeman 24 hours a day (hey everyone has to get away from their job) but in this crazy world they are (unfortunately) a target 24 hours a day. Who knows? Maybe some jerk who got ticketted or arrested for speeding, drunk driving, -whatever- might spot the officer off-duty and say “hey let’s see how tough he is now without that pistol !!!”
Still, I think the officer’s actions were not good PR for police in general.
Dogs all have a history of NEVER having bitten.
Until the first time they bite. Then it’s a shock.
Dogs never have a history of mauling.
Until the first time one rips into the face of a 3 year-old girl. Oh, cite? Sure. I drove the ambulance, hopped out and ran right up and witnessed firsthand the damage done by a sweety wootsy tootsy family dog that had never bitten.
Until it tore off half of Hailey’s nose, and punctured/bit (in no particular order) her eye socket, sinus cavity, lower gum line, cheek bone, ear cartiladge and jaw.
Right. Dogs never bite, until they do it the first time. I really detest guns, but you put me in a place where MY kids are being threatened by sweet snooky woopsy booky binky little puppy, and that dog’s garbage. I wouldn’t waste a Hefty Bag disposing of it’s carcass.
And guess who doesn’t give one fat fuck if that dog did S&R on 9/11? I was there on 9/11, working as an EMT at Ground Zero. Fucking dogs. You wanna take a pass on a dog threatening human children…because… it was somehow connected to 9/11? How completely horrific. And, inhuman. And, inhumane.
Lame-assed flagwaving puppy-hugging horseshit.
The kids are fine, the dog is dead. -shrug- Nothing here looks out of place to me. Those who would much prefer the exact reverse to be the case, I wholeheartedly invite to launch a thread demanding that a dog’s rights be defended at the expense of the safety and lives of children.
Good luck with the thread… -snort-
Cartooniverse
swoon
I love you
Hmmm. I just tried to post this information, and it didn’t stick. ( If it sticks after this post, apologies for duplicate info.)
An added bit of the story I related above. The family that owned the dog that mauled Hailey had their two week old infant daughter in the house. The dog was destroyed the next day.
And, it’s nice to be loved. 
( or, whooshed if I was just whooshed. Either way… )
EXACT same thing you meant AT me… back atcha… buddy. :rolleyes:
“Notably, Toby was a ‘9/11’ rescue dog, adopted by Mr. Arnoldy and Ms. Drummond after being abandoned on the streets of New York City in the chaos after 9/11/2001. He has never bitten a child or an adult. "
The dog was rescued, it was not a rescue dog.
I think that Dad should be worried about his children and what effect his shooting a dog more than five times in front of them will have. OVERKILL!
Here in Florida we had, I remember, three “dog-mauling-little kids” incidents a few years ago. One right after the other. It may not have made the national news but it happened. Near the time that that young woman was mauled to death at her apartment door in San Francisco.
My mother got mauled late last year. She was jogging and listening to her Walkman. As she passed a house on her route a dog “suddenly” lunged at her and bit her left leg, bruising and lacerating it quite badly. The owner was not at home and the dog was acting “oddly”. She orignally believed it was a dog that had a bad reputation in the neighborhood that had a history of threatening pedestrians and neighbors. It was a different dog. It turned out that it was the “main” babysitter for two young children! And had been caught out in the front yard in the rush of that Mom getting an errand completed. It was a herding breed and had been attempting to herd my mother. Mother was able to get away. And the dog was reluctant to leave her yard. My mother had trespassed into the dog’s territory and the dog was already upset that it was in the front yard away from its “job”. Mother and the dog were very lucky that it ended as it did.
If the dog is in a “strange/unfamilar” location off its leash and it begins to act aggressively toward children which this dog was described as being it will lead to a mauling/biting scenerio. It is the logical conclusion for the parent to come to, especially since the dog did not back off when challenged by the adult. A mauling/biting scenerio will also occur if the child trespasses into the dog’s territory. It is the responsibility of the dog owner to physically interceed for the animal. The parent was doing the right thing. The dog owner is/was an idiot. Sad the dog was killed but better the animal than the human.
Maybe I missed something. I believe the officer fired 8-9 times. I don’t think he hit the dog 8-9 times. Firing at a small moving target with a one handed shot(he was holding his child with the other) it could be expected that he may not have hit the dog with all of the shots. He should have kept shooting until the dog stopped moving. If it took 9 shots so be it. Could it have taken 9 hits to stop it? Absolutely. I once shot a rabid possum in the head from 6 inches away with a 40cal hollow point. It took 2 shots. Even a fatal shot may not have stopped the dog immediately especially with a 9mm. Don’t get hung up on the shot count.
Nice, but I was addressing a body of canine-defenders. I used your quote at the top of my thread, but in no way singled you out.
Tirimasu, I stand corrected, thank you. Still, the fact that they even mentioned that lends credence to my disparaging remark at the end of my quote.
If the dogs was found in 2003 in San Francisco, it wouldn’t have been as newsworthy.
Ok, but I’m part of that body of posters, apparently the head of it since you DID in fact single me out. You called me/us, and I quote, “horseshit.” That is totally uncalled for, not to mention crude and vulgar. I thought name-calling was a no-no around here. Nice.
Cartooniverse, take it down a notch . . . this is MPSIMS, not The Pit.
Cajun Man
for the SDMB
I’m a police officer (17 years on the job). So let me answer this one.
I carry a gun with me whenever I’m off-duty. I don’t do it because I’m afraid. I do it for several reasons: I may need to defend myself or my family from random crime and violence, it may be necessary to intervene to protect someone else’s life, and I may run into someone that I’ve dealt with on-duty that may want to take the opportunity to get revenge.
A police officer carrying his gun off-duty is simple common sense. To a police officer, a gun is a tool on which we have learned to rely, not a scary symbol that we are afraid of the world. It may seem odd to you for most citizens to carry a gun in a park, but to me it seems perfectly natural for a police officer to do so.
Glad to. That is exactly what we are trained to do. Once deadly force is justified (and that is the whole point of this discussion), we continue to fire until the threat is stopped.
I’ve known officers that have had to shoot charging dogs before. They are hard to hit (small target, moving fast) and they usually don’t die instantly. Eight or nine shots may not be excessive.
I would also be interested to know if he actually hit the dog that many times. In a situation like that, I would usually expect the officer to actually hit the dog a couple of times for that nine shots.
As to the OP: As in any police shooting, the question is justification. A full investigation needs to be done to find what facts are available. But it basically comes down to whether that officer had a reasonable fear that his children were in danger of serious bodily harm or death. Only he really knows what he was facing.
For the record, unless new facts arise, I’m firmly on the side of the cop. What father would kill a dog in front of his children unless he really believed it was necessary?
That makes good sense, but a police officer would never even consider it. Most (if not all) police agencies specifically prohibit the use of warning shots, and that fact is drilled into us.
I agree that warning shots may be useful in some situations. But because they can be so dangerous, the common wisdom is to just not allow them at all.
My apologies for the crudeness of my language. It is not a topic of purely intellecutal rigor for me, as my posts have proven. Cajun Man, I’m sorry.
I stand by the sentiments and ideas communicated in my posts, but I regret the coarseness of my language. I could have delivered equal vitriol without using those words.
Badge, as usual you have shared with us a perspective 99.9% of us cannot imagine.
Cartooniverse