Here’s a link to a non-subscription site that has the video.
Once the dog was let loose from the car, it the pertinent action takes place out of shot. It does seem like the dog was coming at the cop BUT the dog should never have been let out of the car. I disagree with the cop’s behaviour because it would have been easily preventable (although I don’t believe it was the shooting cop who let the dog out of the car).
And I’d read that it was a big dog; hardly. I think it would be classified at about the medium-sized dog range, maybe a step below. It wasn’t that big. Although I do have scars on my face from a Shitz-Tzu, so you can never tell.
Do all the criminals in your part of the world wear stripped shirts and masks? Whether or not a person is ‘resisting’ or not is irrelevant; Do you think that every felon, upon sight of the police, begans to foam at the mouth and whips out his pistols?
A weapon was discharged in a traffic stop. The poeple involved were innocent of all wrongdoing. How hard is that to understand?
The police failed to control the situation, and it is just dumb luck that it wasn’t a person who wound up dead.
Evidence of a felony being committed was also something the officers on the scene did not have at the time, obviously. And enough sense to close the door to keep the dog from attacking them, too. Seems like they were lacking a lot.
So? The 911 call is enough for the officers to investigate, but how does some yahoo calling in with a wild story justify threatening someone’s life by pointing a gun at them? Do you have a cite showing that the car was actually hauling ass down the road at night with money flying out the window, or did the officers decide to start waving guns at people purely because of a call and not because of any evidence whatsoever that the people were dangerous?
I find it amazing that people are arguing with a straight face that the police are justified in marching people around at gunpoint on the basis of a phone call that claims something that doesn’t match what’s witnessed by the officers, but I guess some people do like the idea of a police state.
Hearing those innocent people scream after their dog was gunned down is what I am taking to bed with me tonight.
Was there even a reported robbery for the police to be investigating? Based on the linked story, I am not sure there was a crime to justify a stop.
I’ve seen cops on the various real cop shows not shoot when, IMO, they might have been justified. I’ve seen cops not shoot at cars trying to ram them. I’ve seen cops talk to people menacing them with weapons. I try to give the police the benefit of the doubt. BUT…
Without really knowing all the facts, that looked like intentionally killing a dog to punish the “bad guys.” Just a little street justice, like the kind we slurp up as twisted entertainment in the movies.
I could easily keep virtually any dog at bay with the butt end of a shotgun. There were plenty of other armed officers present. – I need a drink.
The only appropriate use for a firearm is to fire. Using it as a blunt weapon is a no-no, since that means that you know have the barrel of a loaded firearm pointed at you.
So in your world the police should force everyone to the ground and cuff them at handpoint, without any 1st hand evidence, just in case they might be felons?
To those who are defending the cops. It doesn’t scare you that the only thing the cops went on was one persons word? They get a call, saying a car is speeding away, with money flying out of the window, when they find the car, it isn’t speeding, money isn’t flying out of the window, but they pull them over and treat them as armed and dangerous anyway?
What if we were neighbors, and I thought something suspicious was going on in your house and called the cops. Would you mind them busting in to your house, forcing everyone down to the ground and handcuffing them until they determine whether or not my phone call was true? And then, what if you told them to close the back door, because your dog was out there, but they ignored you, and then when it came into the house to see what was going on, they shot it and claimed self defense? Would all of that be ok with you?
But from what I hear, the manner in which the family was handled disturbs me more than the death of the dog. Moreover, IMO the shooting of the dog is especially egregious because of the potential it posed for injury to people involved in the tense situation - either cops or “victims.”
I don’t have huge issues with being stopped and questioned by cops after a 911 call. But I do have issues concerning how I should be treated following such a stop.
How many officers were involved in this stop? And they were unable to “secure” the situation short of cuffing everyone on the ground, and then still keeping their guns drawn?
LEOs are required to exercise their judgment all the time. IMO, in this instance, there is no question but that they screwed up. What I wonder is, how many such instances occur but go unreported because no animals were harmed during the filming?
Aside - IME US tort law generally puts pretty low value on pets. Basically replacement value.
Being a cop in Small Town USA means you are a BSD in an insignificant little backwater of the world. Small town cops are, unfortunately, all too frequently petty, small-minded bullies too caught up in themselves and how ‘important’ they are than to actually spend time ‘serving and protecting’. Too much time spent watching Cops and such, and seeing how real cops work in the big cities.
Cops are, and should be, held to a higher responsibility. I am an investment banker. When I am in charge of someone else’s money, I am held to a higher standard of competence. I can’t handle Joe Client’s money in the same way that Joe Client balances his checkbook.
In return for giving police offers firearms and rights/responsibilities far above and beyond what we grant ordinary citizens, and in return for giving them authority and respect above and beyond what we give normal citizens (at least theoretically; I have a great deal of respect and admiration for the jobs that cops do, Hicksville USA cops not withstanding), we hold them to a higher level of competence. Deadly force is and should be the last resort, and we expect them to be trained to handle situations properly, precisely because of the powers we have given them.
We have all known people who would ‘fly off the handle’ - you know the kinds - people to whom you purposely wouldn’t report minor problems because they would turn it into a fucking three act Greek tragedy. Dittoe these police officers and people who took the original call, etc.
No one has mentioned how stupid they were for believing the 911 tapes in the first place. I’m not a cop, but I would imagine that most robbers don’t throw money out the window, because it’s money they just committed a crime for and it tends to attract attention from officers.
Might as well believe that drug dealers throw bricks of cocaine out their windows.
“Hello, 911? There’s a bank robbery in progress and someone’s been shot!”
“Can you put someone else on the phone to corroborate this?”
I’d guess the majority of 911 calls are “one person’s word”. And in this case, the cops who pulled them over heard it from the state police and didn’t think to question their source. I mentioned earler that they described it as a failure to communicate.
I definitely don’t think the officers did the right thing but, as others have pointed out, hindsight is 20/20. I also don’t think they acted with malice and should be “sued for every penny they’ve got”. This video should be used as a training guide for the police so that an incident like this doesn’t occur in the future because they should have closed the car door. Look at it this way- let’s say they were mean, nasty armed robbers and while getting on the ground, one of them makes a move- the officer with his gun trained on the dog would most likely turn around to cover the other cops, taking his eye and gun off the dog. At that point the dog could attack any one of them.
on preview I just saw this-
A lot of banks use exploding dye packs or other theft prevention tools that would render the money useless- at that point it would make sense for the hypothetical robbers to ditch the loot.
How would expect the cops to react if they got to the scene of the “robbery” and it was business at usually at the bank and there wasn’t a body or any blood? Force all the customer’s out of the bank at gun point, handcuff them and shoot the blind man’s seeing eye dog?
I see this as much more then a failure to communicate. It is a failure of the police responding to use any type of judgement or reasoning.
Wether there was in fact a felony involved, or not, it’s still a felony stop. It’s a type of stop, named after what the people are suspected of, not a comment on the guilt or innocent of the suspects. It’s not reffered to as an “alleged felony stop” or anything like that. It’s just a felony stop.
I’m not highly familiar with LEO procedures, so I’ll leave someone who does know address this. However, it looked like they were still securing and checking the people. One of the officers did check the vehicle (From the driver side), about 10 seconds or so before the dog came out, then returned to where the suspects were. I don’t know what was up with that… Probably checking to make sure nobody else was in the car. I don’t know if he didn’t see the dogs, didn’t take note of it (Looking for people instead?), or didn’t think it was important. If I had to bet, I’d guess he saw the dogs in the backseat and didn’t think it would get out the front door (Or, less likely, didn’t note that the far door was open). Kinda sloppy, in any case. I didn’t see anyone inspect the vehicle from the passenger side, as I’ve seen many people state (Closest on that side was by one of the suspects).
The police on the scene were simply told to conduct a felony stop and arrest the people on suspicion of robbery. They were in no possition to know the quality of the information handed to them, and blaming them for that is targeting the wrong people.
Guess you missed the “suspected robbery” bit, huh? Your list there is nothing close to what the officers on the scene were told, nor what the 911 caller said (Except for the ‘alleged speeding’, though I seriously doubt giving them a speeding ticket was ever planned on durring the whole event). It wasn’t a traffic stop, it was a felony stop.
That’s a bit of a strawman, now isn’t it? Nobody said anything about chasing them at high speed.
I kinda see two sides to it. On the one hand, we do want the police to respond adequatly when requested. How about if your house was broken into, and you’re hiding in the bedroom calling 911 while someone rummages through your house? Would you rather the police cruised by the house, looking to see if there was any sign of a break-in visible, before deciding to do anything about it, or would you be terribly upset if they came in, instead? I’d wager to guess that well over 90% of police calls are by just one person calling the police. The police, for better or worse, have to treat them all seriously. Being too cautious can land the police in just as much trouble as being too bold (Remember the huge fit everyone threw after Columbine because they said the police “didn’t act in time”).
And yes, they did err more on the side of being too strong. But you can’t blame the officers on the scene for that, all the news sources I’ve seen indicated that all they were told was to conduct a felony stop on suspicion of robbery. But even if they did suspect that there was no crime involved, they were still instructed to conduct a felony stop and be sure. You can never be sure, just because the people you pull over happen to be polite about it…
Hmm… I probably wouldn’t sue the arresting officers. I’d probably sue whatever person granted the search warrant without adequate legal evidence (And possibly the ones who requested it), seeing as it would be illegal; Property searches have much higher requirements than pulling over a vehicle does. Felony stops do not require evidence to conduct, only suspicion.
I think it was Mojo that said it first, but it really does seem like one bad game of telephone. First the grossly-exagerated 911 call (And as I mentioned, they have to take these 911 calls seriously, else they instead get accused of being slackers…). Then the 911 opperators foreward this to one police force, which then requests help from another police force (IIRC), which tells some of their officers to conduct a felony stop on the vehicle. And like ‘telephone’, little bits add up, and by the time it gets to the end, the officers on the scene know only that they’re supposed to conduct a felony stop. Unfortunatly, in the media’s eye, all the blame seems to be focused on the one officer that fired the shot. And even on the scene, he can’t be blamed for everything that happened, but that doesn’t seem to be stopping people.
And while I’m sure some robbers would want to keep all the cash they got, I can imagine at least a few ways that some money could end up ‘spilling from the car’. The ink-dye mention is one possibility. So is someone driving away too fast with a window down, who forgot to close up the loot-bags securely…
It seems to me that we don’t know if these officers acted appropriately, or if they were properly trained since we don’t know what their SOP was supposed to be.
It’s hard to make snap judgements, so police have SOPs for everything.
It’s obvious that the 911 call was a load of crap. The lady claimed they were going 100-110 miles per hour. That right there is probably the lie that set this entire thing in motion.
We can blame the dispatchers and the system for elevating this to a felony stop, but if the officers were given enough information over their radio to reasonably believe this was a legitimate felony stop, we need to judge them by how well they followed their training for such a situation.
What we need to know is:
What is the SOP for shutting doors on a car in a felony stop?
What is the SOP for dealing with dogs on a felony stop?
I’m not a cop, but I guess it’s possible that police departments routinely train their officers to kill dogs if there is any doubt. If this is the training that is drilled into these guys, then we need to ask ourselves if that is how we want to train our police to react.
Maybe with a strict, no mercy dog killing attitude you get a thousand dead dogs every year and save one or two cops from injury or death.
All Im saying is that in order to know how well these cops acted, we need to know how they were trained to react. Obviously the situation was FUBAR, but we need to know if it was that way because of the officers, or because of their training.
If they followed their training, then our beef should be with the protocols we are teaching our police to follow, not the average cop that does what he has been trained.
Apparently you missed some of the other parts of my post. I posted the above statement in responce to another post that said that the caller said that the family was speeding away. My point was that the facts didn’t match the information given to the police.
They were the ones who were all to willing to sitck guns at people’s heads and force them to kneel beside the street while shooting their dog. I have no sympathy for the ‘just following orders’ defense, and I think it went out of style back in the 40s.
I guess you missed the multiple times I’ve pointed out the lack of probable cause, huh? My list is what officers on the scene SAW. All they had was a phone call that DIDN’T MATCH THE VISUAL EVIDENCE. I don’t think that pointing a loaded gun at someone’s head is justified by an uncorroborated phone call. Jesus, was there even a reported robbery in the area at the time? It’s kind of hard to follow the sort of thinking that leads to ‘hmm, there haven’t been any robberies, but these guys must be robbers’, but oh well.
This is precisely why I called you on not putting ‘felony stop’ in quotes; the term is misleading when used like you do to imply that there was an actual felony involved by anyone other than the police.
Why are you even asking this kind of question? Of course I’d want to police to look and see if there’s a sign of a break-in or some other evidence of a crime before they kick in the door and start waving guns around. It’s not that hard to verify that there is a real break-in in progress and not just someone prank calling.
Would you like it if they used the ‘felony stop’ procedures demonstrated in the dog-shooting case? Can’t you just picture it: The police recieve a 911 call that your house is being broken into. They quickly drive up, kick in the doors, and force everyone to thier knees at gunpoint, shoot a pet or two since they weren’t secured, and then find out that it was some neighbor who made the call.
I’m quite willing to blame the person pointing a gun at innocent people for pointing a gun at innocent people.
**I have no sympathy for the ‘just following orders’ defense, and I think it went out of style back in the 40s. **
/gag
Talk about hyperbole. Let’s see…6 million dead…one dead dog…
Yeah…that’s a valid comparison.
If there is a standard operating procedure for police that has evolved out of years of experience that calls for shooting dogs at the slightest hint of danger while dealing with suspects, then I can’t blame police for following the procedure. In fact, we’d be blaming hte cop if he didn’t shoot the dog and anothe rcop got hurt because of it. Either way, it certainly falls just the tiniest bit short of rounding up people, putting them on trains and confining them in a concentration camp.
I’m quite willing to blame the person pointing a gun at innocent people for pointing a gun at innocent people.
You realize that police point guns at innocent people everyday don’t you? It’s not the cop’s job to sort out if someone is innocent or not, it’s their job to safely arrest people and try to make sure they keep themselves and the other cops they work with alive.
Part of a cop’s job is sorting out if someone needs to be arrested or not. They don’t just arrest everyone they bump into. Please remember that no one in this family was ever arrested. And how safely did the cops handly the situation if shots were fired? They need to keep the people and animals they are dealing with alive as well as the other cops.