My beautiful girl, Phoebe lounging by the pool |
One story
was of police responding to the wrong address, shooting the owners beloved dog in the back, killing him and devastating
the family. I remember a few years ago
in Texas, a family and their dog stopped at a gas station. The father mistakenly left his wallet on the
car hood when they left the station and some money flew out. There had been a robbery in the vicinity and
somehow the police targeted this family as possible suspects simply due to the
money flying off the roof. They pursued
the family, pulled them out of the car and made them get on the ground. Their sweet little dog trotted towards the
police. One of the cops shot and killed
this family’s beloved dog right in front of them. I’m sure that family is still
completely traumatized.
The Huffington
Post also reported a story yesterday about an Officer that killed a friendly
dog in Louisiana. A witness stated that
the Officer smirked, and appeared to be holding back a smile after shooting a
man’s friendly dog right in front of him for no reason. You can read that sickening story here http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/29/cop-smiles-after-shooting-dog_n_5235504.html. A followup to the story was reported by
KPLCTv this morning, which you can read here at; http://www.kplctv.com/story/25385577/reports-sulphur-police-officer-fatally-shoots-dog.
A friend of
mine has a relative in Connecticut who owned a loving family dog, a friendly
playful Pit Bull named Diesel who was their 3 year old son’s best friend in the
world. Somehow the dog escaped from
their yard. Diesel’s two sibling dogs
were across the street playing with a neighbor’s dog. He wanted to join them so he bounded over
there to play too. Unfortunately the
neighbor’s relative, an off duty cop, was visiting that day. He must have seen an unleashed Pit Bull and
decided to shoot and kill this beautiful loving dog. Bleeding to death, Diesel was able to drag
himself across the street back to his home where he collapsed and died in their
foyer, in his owner’s arms.
The web site
Police State USA has reported a number of horrific instances where authorities
have killed beloved family dogs with no valid reason. You can view those stories at http://www.policestateusa.com/tag/puppycide/. There is also a Facebook page that reports on
dogs shot by police, https://www.facebook.com/DogsShotbyPolice. Inside Edition reported yesterday that “It
is estimated that every 98 minutes a dog is shot by law enforcement.” That is a horrifying statistic! My husband and I drive cross country several
times a year. It terrifies me that we
could potentially be pulled over or approached by police for a minor traffic
infraction or due to some mistaken identity, and end up mourning the loss of
our beautiful loving girls because an Officer shot them in the car for no valid
reason. There are many Police
Officers out there who “get it”. They
don’t become trigger happy just because a canine is in the vicinity, but there
appear to be many who do, far too many.
Clearly,
these killings are steeped in ignorance and total disregard for families and their
beloved dogs. These horrific stories are
becoming more and more frequent. Additional
training should be mandatory for police to help them better understand how to
deal with dogs during the course of their official business. During the course of police business, the dog
isn’t the suspect, the human is. A dog
shouldn’t be wasted like a worthless piece of garbage because his human is
suspected of something, or is merely wanted for questioning. Dogs are not criminals, they are innocent
victims. Shooting and killing a dog
should never be an Officer’s automatic first course of action. Officials need to understand how devastating
it is to a family and a community when an Officer shoots and kills a dog that
is a beloved family member.
My baby girl Isis, smiling for the camera |