David, I was not inferring that the officer should have allowed himself to be injured.

I am saying that dishcarging a handgun in a residential area, at a small moving target is a dangerous thing to do. Especially with civilians on the street.

For anyone, LEO or not.

I wasn't there, so can't judge the situation, but I still think he was very lucky that he didn't shoot someone or something other than the dog that was charging him.

 Quote: janice jarman

.... I wasn't there, so can't judge the situation....

An excellent point. It's so easy to accept "news" at face value. I have to remind myself all the time that when five news stories about the same event are different (as happens all the time), that's a reminder that news stories are written by people, people who were *not* there, and that they are not recorded faithfully as events unfold.

 Quote:

. It was a boxer, a single dog weighing what, 55 or 65 lbs

I made the mistake of thinking two yellow labs charging out of their front yard with their owner right there were just excited to see me. Luckily I picked up my 2yr old son because one of them ran around and bit me from behind. right in the left pocket where my wallet didnt help.

"Darlin' I knew Milton Berle and you are not him."


Thank God.

 Quote: david c.frost

As for the cop waking everyone up and getting them out on a false alarm from your system, they are ridiculed. Had the house burnt down and people killed they would have been villified. Next time let your alarm company handle the problem, that way the police won't have to harrass you. Sometimes you just can't please everyone. DFrost

You made several erroneous assumptions David:

Um, the cop didn't wake everyone up - the alarm did. The cops got to the house within 5 minutes of the alarm going off. Damned fine job in getting to us that quickly. I wanted to hug them I was so happy to see them.

The alarm was not a false alarm - there was carbon monoxide in the basement.

We didn't call the cops, the alarm company did. My system is wired so that it's automatically routed to the fire and police when it goes off. I couldn't call the cops if I wanted to. My phone lines get seized if the alarm goes off.

Why do you think I felt harassed by the cops trying to help us that night? Odd statement. The guy was really nice, very professional, very polite and, as I stated before, quick on his feet regarding my dog. This is a small town. Everyone knows everyone. We all (cops and my family) stayed in the front yard chatting about dogs and cars and our town for at least 1/2 hour while the gas company and fire department did their job.

Assuming you are a police officer I would hope and pray you take your responsibility seriously. And if you are a LEO, I hope you remain safe in your duties. I just can't get OK with the idea that this guy had no other means of handling the situation.

To Michael: regarding your comment that shooting the gun in the air is a bad idea - maybe I stand corrected. I foolishly assumed that by the time the bullet looses its momentum going up, all it can do is drop to the ground. But as I said, I surely could be wrong. And if I'm wrong, yeesh, shooting the gun into the air would be a very bad idea.

To Steve Lepic - "Judy, it seems like you have a bit of an agenda here and strong feelings rooted in some unrelated situations". What??? I have absolutely no idea what that means. Sometimes, Steve, there is no agenda. Your post makes me think perhaps you'd like there to be but, alas, there is none. Sorry to disappoint.

Again, I just didn't think fatally shooting the dog was his best and/or only remedy.

It's that simple.

 Quote: david c.frost

I absolutely agree it was the owners fault. Had the dog been under control whether the handler, fence or kennel, this would not have happened.

and
"this story reeks. The dog being loose is key here."

and
"Not enough realiable information to make any judgements on either the animal or the officer..only the animals owner for carlessly letting the dog roam."

Those statements seem to be the only ones that can be made pretty confidently at this point.

There's a fine line between speculation, interest, and sorrow -- and conviction-by-internet-forum.

Maybe we will learn more. Not much to go on there.....

 Quote: Heather Williams

I have a friend who's brother was attacked by a dog - the article in the paper read that he was innocently skipping home from school when a vicious pit bull broke through a fence to attack him, nearly taking his life. Well, his sister told me that he chucked rocks at the dog (a lab) every day after school and one day, the gate wasn't quite locked and when the kid hit the dog that day, it chased after him and bit him. He needed about 100 stitches on his leg or something.

When I was in 2nd grade there was a house alongside our elementary school's drive that had a GSD mix chained next to it. Now, when I was younger, I knew better than to approach a strange dog. The house had no fence, and the dog was, as far as I saw, chained during the morning hours, we never saw it in the afternoon. While walking up the road one morning the dog was gone, and a girl in my class said the people got rid of it because it bit her. She said she was terrified of dogs now because of it and it was vicious.
Mind you, this is 2nd grade. I was, what.. 7 years old? But I remember pretty vividly since I thought this girl was the dumbest girl in the entire school after that.

I asked her how she got bit. She said the dog was mean and nasty and bit her out of nowhere.
My supar-doggy-2nd-grader-brain radar went off so I asked how she got close enough to the chained dog to get bit.
She said her and her friend were throwing a ball around and it bounced into the dog's yard, so she ran to get it and was bitten on the hand.
She went on to proudly (yes, she thought her story was something cool) say she hated all dogs now because they bite. I told her she was stupid because she ran into the dog's yard and she deserved to get bitten because she didn't have an adult help and chained dogs would bite (well, 2nd grade thinking). We fought about it and she refused to believe it was her fault for chasing a ball towards a chained up dog.
Also told her the dog wasn't mean, it was her fault for teasing it (as I found out as well they threw things at it).

Funny how even a 2nd grader knows better and knows who is REALLY at fault in some situations. Why is it grown adults can't use that logic?

 Quote: steve strom

 Quote:

. It was a boxer, a single dog weighing what, 55 or 65 lbs

I made the mistake of thinking two yellow labs charging out of their front yard with their owner right there were just excited to see me. Luckily I picked up my 2yr old son because one of them ran around and bit me from behind. right in the left pocket where my wallet didnt help.

But see, that's a very, very different scenario to me. You had a 2 year old to protect and, as if that's not scary enough, you had 2 dogs charging at you.

Even if you were alone, you'd surely have to shoot to kill or seriously maim at least one of the dogs to stand a chance of coming away from it in one piece.

But being by himself, armed with a gun and seeing only one dog coming in his direction, call me crazy but why couldn't he try screaming at the dog? Isnt' that what this site always tells us to do? There's a list of passive stuff to try with a dog that might be aggressive. Another list of stuff to do if that doesn't work and the dog still keeps coming toward you. Aren't we told if we have to, to then stand our ground and shout aggressively? I don't ever remember reading on this website shoot first, ask questions later.

And finally, if this boxer then kept on coming, why couldn't he give it a well placed kick? If this story involved a very petite woman, a young person, a senior citizen, I'd find it somewhat easier to understand resorting to a gun as a first response. Speaking of weapons, why couldn't he hit the dog in the head with it, temporarily disabling him? I'm not suggesting some bone-crushing blow, but something to let the dog know he'd better not come near the guy again or it's "light's out" next time.

At the very least, why couldn't he shoot it in the leg or some other none fatal area? Shooting the dog in the head just sounds so over-the-top and unjustified to me.

Again, if there were 2 dogs coming at him, that's a whole other story.

<<< Last week the cops were at my house unexpectedly because my house alarm went off at 4:00 AM screeching FIRE - Get out of the house immediately. Yeesh what a scare that was. Cops come to my house and bang on my front door to save us from what turned out to be a carbon monoxide issue.>>>

Seems to me If you knew the alarm company would call them, they wouldn't unexpected.

I must have misinterpreted your words. At least they showed they don't just shoot dogs on sight. I am a law enforcement officer and I take my job very seriously. Thank you for your concern.

DFrost

Apparently, I'm the only one who correctly interpreted Judy's post. Guys, she was saying that the cops who showed up at her house were RESPONSIBLE....in contrast to the officer who shot the boxer. Also, she said how happy she was to see them and that she felt fortunate to have officers like them in her area. Her tone, meaning, and point were totally missed and/or misconstrued here. Perhaps we should read the entire posts carefully.

Judy, feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, and you were indeed bashing these men.