Cop goes to wrong house, shoots owners dog.

[mirage202]

The officer went in aggressively, with his weapon drawn. The dog did what any dog would do, react to a threat to his owner.

There are enough cop shows on TV these days where you see plenty of US Cops arriving at domestics and never having drawn their weapon in advance.

The officer in question should face disciplinary action purely for unwarranted heavy handed and aggressive policing, NOT specifically for the act of shooting the dog, which, due to a dogs nature, could have posed a serious risk to the officers safety. He reacted to a developing situation in the split second he had to do so.

The fault of the wrong address according to the news report lays at the feet of the 911 caller, and that in itself should be dealt with as a different issue, that is not the officers, or APD's fault.

 

[Snotnarok]

I always enjoy reading posts where people say the officer has no excuse in some event or that cops are always screwing up meanwhile cops are out there doing their (typically) underpaid/overworked jobs everyday and that's not talked about, just the fuck ups.

Yes while this is a rather large fuck up, you have to understand where the officer was. It was a domestic dispute he was sent to investigate, which means possible violence, now there is a dog barking at him potentially able to do him great harm as well as potential attackers in the form of the couple inside.

If an attacker draws a knife on an officer, the officer in most states has the right to shoot said person because he can meet with equal force. This isn't a tiny dog, and it could have endangered him not to mention the suspected arguing couple.

Does it suck? Yeah, it does and there's not a lot you can do to make up for it but I can see why the officer did it. But most people jump to the cute animal has more rights than someone defending themselves.

 

[Marcus Kehoe]

I believe under circumstances such as this the police officer should have been let go.

 

[The Great Purtabo]

I believe under circumstances such as this the police officer should have been let go.

what? why?just because they are a police officer, they get to get away with gross negligence? This is a huge, but less wide-spread problem in Canada, where police officers are pardoned for reprehensible and violent crimes; If the police aren't held responsible, who can we trust? With a bunch of maniacs walking the streets with a badge and a licence to kill.

 

[anthony87]

I believe under circumstances such as this the police officer should have been let go.

what? why?just because they are a police officer, they get to get away with gross negligence? This is a huge, but less wide-spread problem in Canada, where police officers are pardoned for reprehensible and violent crimes; If the police aren't held responsible, who can we trust? With a bunch of maniacs walking the streets with a badge and a licence to kill.

So....you DO in fact think the officer should be punished? Because I'm pretty sure he means "let go" as in "fired".

 

[Marcus Kehoe]

I believe under circumstances such as this the police officer should have been let go.

what? why?just because they are a police officer, they get to get away with gross negligence? This is a huge, but less wide-spread problem in Canada, where police officers are pardoned for reprehensible and violent crimes; If the police aren't held responsible, who can we trust? With a bunch of maniacs walking the streets with a badge and a licence to kill.

Let go as in fired, your thinking of let off the hook.

 

[Frission]

]

Oh my god a human being made a mistake, you are kidding me. Yeah I thought the rest of us are perfect. That is the final straw, time to make a "lets kill all cops thread." May your torches burn bright and your pitchforks pointy, it's cop killing time. Everyone on this planet signed a pact to be perfect, I won't stand a glitch in the system. Almost can't type right now because my perfect world is falling apart. Lets put the joking aside and say he made a mistake, will probably feel bad for a long time.

Seems to happen a lot among the "To protect and serve" crowd... these "isolated incidents" are beginning to add up. The entire point of being a police office is you are willingly choosing a life of SERVICE to the PUBLIC and accepting more responsibility and to be held at a higher standard and if they kept their end of the bargain they would be freaking respected unanimously, there would be no ifs or buts about it.

Whatever you say.

I would say that cops are only human, but what this cop did was dangerous. Imagine if he had shot a person instead of a dog. It's a miracle that no one was seriously hurt or killed.

 

[The Great Purtabo]

I believe under circumstances such as this the police officer should have been let go.

what? why?just because they are a police officer, they get to get away with gross negligence? This is a huge, but less wide-spread problem in Canada, where police officers are pardoned for reprehensible and violent crimes; If the police aren't held responsible, who can we trust? With a bunch of maniacs walking the streets with a badge and a licence to kill.

Let go as in fired, your thinking of let off the hook.

OH huh. I read that the wrong way

I look like an idiot... XD

 

[evilneko]

It is actually very relevant that he went to the wrong house, it is perhaps the biggest reason that the dog is dead right now.[/quote]

It's irrelevant for the purposes of assigning blame and whether the officer did wrong. Further, it's irrelevant because the officer went to the address he was given. He didn't get the address wrong, the person who called 911 did. This is why I consider this detail irrelevant.

I'm not saying that all cops are bad or that he intended the dog to die, but his negligence in responding to a call about a disturbance does require some form of penalization.

He should not have had his weapon drawn on someone who is unarmed and walking out of a different house than the one he received the call for and even accidents have consequences, I know because when I've done something bad by accident I still end up in trouble.

Now that I can agree with. I do not know why he went in with weapon drawn when, as far as we know, there was no reason to expect having to use it. None of the news reports I looked at (mostly clones of each other, bleh) indicated whether the original disturbance call included a detail like "shots fired" or if either party were armed, so no reason to have weapon ready. Maybe it was a shitty neighborhood known for weapons violence, but that's just speculation.

 

[Sansha]

The only thing you can blame this officer for is entering the wrong house. Otherwise he did what any officer would do in that situation, even if it was the right house. Why can't people accept the fact that even police officers make mistakes?

In a situation like this a police officer is genuinely frightened because, based on the information given and how he's carried it out, he's dealing with what he believes is a dangerous individual, and training kicks in.

Seriously worries me that their trained response to "Dog barking" is "Shoot in face." Also worries me that a barking dog could trigger a fear response in a POLICE OFFICER. How is this guy supposed to handle real crime if something this benign has him scared into being trigger happy?

You don't know the situation.

You don't know what it's like to believe you're faced with a dangerous criminal and a dog suddenly comes at you. You can't afford to be distracted from keeping the criminal in line, nor can you allow yourself to be attacked by what might be a vicious guard dog.

What happened is unfortunate, yes, but when you're in that situation you're not 'trigger happy', you're scared out of your mind and running on your training.

 

[Gatx]

The only thing you can blame this officer for is entering the wrong house. Otherwise he did what any officer would do in that situation, even if it was the right house. Why can't people accept the fact that even police officers make mistakes?

You can't even blame him for that because it was the original caller that made a mistake with the address. The officer went to the address that was given.

 

[The Great Purtabo]

"Oh I hate it when people disagree with me! I'm going to act like a 5 year old!"

*paraphrased

Oh, can a certain someone stop being such a prissy prat? If you don't there'll be a ban in it for you; Mods ban for much less these days ^.^

Okay well thats funny coming from you again. You one of those people that lets others take the fall and back out at the last second. Think your nothing more than mod bait.

No, well I think you are immature, and take things far too personally. If you disagree with someone, DISAGREE. Don't act like a child and be a confrontational and annoying force on the forums, as you said before, we are here to have fun, not be a bag of pricks... well, MOST people anyways....

 

[evilneko]

...except that it was the wrong house

This part is irrelevant.

So it's alright for a policeman to turn up at an innocent man's house and shoot his dog?

If the officer had a reason to be there, I'd agree. But HE went to the wrong house, and HIS mistake cost an innocent man his dog.

How is that alright?

See above. Not his mistake.

 

[Tanis]

The dog shouldn't have been wearing a hoodie.

All I'm saying.