Thoughts on Hawthorne, Ca Police Kill Dog

[purf]

Hm.

I've watched the video once, up to the point where the dog is actually dying (I'm somewhat squeamish these days), but really... all I'm seeing here is an unfortunate chain of effects, fueled by human error. A chain of events resulting in - from briefly skimming through the comments:

"Large, dangerous dog attacks armed man. Armed man kills dog" End of story.

[sub]...although seeing this makes me a bit scared of how low US cops' threshold for Pull gun, Shoot to kill seems to be. I've read somewhere that in the US, more bullets were shot in one man than the entire German police force had fired in that year.[/sub]

 

[DugMachine]

We wouldn't we when we're paying for them. Risking injury is part of their job unfortunately it seems more acceptable to endanger the public and their pets in America. Off course they'd quite happy for their dogs to use you as a chew toy.

I would guess you have a childish view of law enforcement and think they only go after bad guys and no one else has anything to worry about and there aren't any moronic laws like the ones below to contend with...

What the fuck are you going on about? I don't give a shit about insurance laws or what OTHER cops have done. Yes LAPD is corrupt as fuck etc etc but I'm looking at THIS PARTICULAR fucking situation. The dog was aggressive, JUMPED and the cop defended himself.

Why is bringing up what other cops have done somehow relevant to this story? For fucks sake, I mean use your brain.

 

[Fdzzaigl]

snip

Look, I'm sure you are superman and can dodge bullets if you had to with the grace of a ballerina but I'm just not discussing this anymore. The fact of the matter is within a few posts I've had my grandfather, father, uncle and cousins all insulted because a police officer tried to defend himself.

Not everyone deals with adrenaline the same, even actual trained soldiers can totally lose all sense of control when shit hits the fan. I too was a lifeguard and it's not a demanding job. I saved a few people and yes it's a rush but nowhere near "Holy shit I might just get mauled by this dog if I don't protect myself." This cop could well have a phobia of dogs? Nobody has brought that up.

Was there a better way to deal with it? Yes of course there was. But it didn't happen and whether he handled it in a controlled manner or aggressively (like he did) he made the right call one way or another. It's. A. Fucking. Dog.

I'm not superman at all, neither do I have any wish to insult you. I also agree: being a lifeguard is not a demanding job 99% of the time (but it pays decently in summer), except you need to be there for that 1% when shit hits the fan.

No, not everyone deals with adrenaline the same, yes, perhaps the cop just freaked out and this is a lone case (although I don't believe that from the footage).

All of that could be true, but it still isn't acceptable. Training is there to be relied on, especially for people who have a high chance of being confronted by a situation like that. I know people who get confronted with medical emergencies, CPR, and the like every single day and they get called on their mistakes as well.

Do they need to be fired and stigmatised for the rest of their lives? No, but neither should their mistakes be dismissed because "It's. A. Fucking. Dog."

 

[Belated]

The dog was obviously trying to attack them. I honestly don't see anything wrong with shooting it in self-defense. You shouldn't have to assume a dog means no harm to you when it very well might. If a dog came at me like that, I'd shoot it too. I'm not gonna risk losing a leg just to protect somebody's precious companion that they couldn't bother to restrain properly.

On the other hand, the bigger issue IMO is that they arrested the guy. Why did they arrest him? He wasn't doing anything illegal. It's perfectly legal to film cops. This is a problem. Cops can arrest you just because they're mad at you. They don't need proof of a crime, they don't even need suspicion of one. They can just arrest you to get you out of the way. They shouldn't be able to do that. Not only is it legal to film cops, but I personally believe it should be mandatory. Every police officer should be required to wear a camera at all times to prevent them from getting away with anything, and merely removing the camera while on-duty should be a punishable offense. And if they want to arrest someone, they should need to have filmed proof on their cameras of some type of crime. I truly believe that. Some of the most crooked people on earth are ironically the people we employ to stop crooked people. Those are the real "dogs" we need to keep on a tighter leash.

 

[The Event]

3. Police arrest him, dog gets very aggressive and attacks, cop tries to grab its collar, dog attacks, cop doesn't take any chances and shoots the dog, sad but very likely to be necessary.

You said the dog attacked before the cop tried to grab it. Just to check, at which point in the video did the dog attack anyone?
All I saw was a dog jump up and bark at someone after they tried to grab his neck.
The only one acting aggressively in the video is the policeman who shot the dog.

 

[White Lightning]

It surprised me how many people completely throw logic and evidence out the window when it comes to damning the Police.

The cop was trying to grab it's collar to restrain it and the dog attacked. What would you of done? Sat there and hoped it decided not to kill you?

I don't know what's more pathetic, the fact that people would rather have this dog potentially maul this human being to death, or how quickly people will just immediately assume the cops are bastards without actually getting all the facts.

You're doing much the same thing here though with regards to evidence.

It isn't at all clear from the video what the dog is doing, nor that the officer made any attempt to grab the dog's collar or restrain it in any way.

While the 'lunge' or jump or whatever it was the dog did immediately prior to being shot is rather ambiguous, the dog's overall pattern of behaviour really isn't very consistent with that of an aggressive dog out to hurt anyone.

All in all it's equally likely to have been the kind of playful tendency some dogs have to jump all over people.

Yet you claim that this highly ambigious evidence is clear proof of what is going on, when there is more than enough room for questioning whether that was in fact the case...

Logic and evidence in this case, based on that video, is almost entirely ambiguous.

whether that reaction was justified appears dubious, but this is not clear enough to say either way.
Please don't claim to hold the only possible logical position when the evidence doesn't really support your argument that clearly.

Nothing is more tedious than people proclaiming their argument to be more logical or rational than that of others when careful investigation of the available evidence doesn't in fact support that notion.

Seems to me you saw a different video, it CLEARLY shows the cop reaching towards the dog, why would he be doing that if not to grab it's collar? and again, it CLEARLY shows the dog lunging, that's a pretty big dog and in that situation it's better to play it safe. Yeah it sucks that the dog died but again there wasn't much else the cops could of done.

 

[Segafriday]

The guy in question is not important, he never was, it doesn?t matter if the dog was on a leash or not. the only thing that matters here is that an armed and trained police officer shot and killed an animal less than half his size in "self defence" I'm sorry, but no, there?s nothing, NOTHING you can say that justifies that. intelligent people do not refer to this as "appropriate problem solving" the cop was a trigger happy thug nothing more.

see, cops aren?t malicious, they're human, if you gave me a gun and told me i was in charge of keeping everyone else in line, I'd go mad with power too, its what humans do. I don?t know why people seem to think that cops are some how "above" that kind of behaviour, they aren?t.

what it comes down to is that the owner should have had the dog on a leash, and its his fault the dog was inside the perimeter, but no one, not even a cop has the right to use THAT kind of deadly force for such a stupid, short-sighted reason.

peace.

 

[Belated]

3. Police arrest him, dog gets very aggressive and attacks, cop tries to grab its collar, dog attacks, cop doesn't take any chances and shoots the dog, sad but very likely to be necessary.

You said the dog attacked before the cop tried to grab it. Just to check, at which point in the video did the dog attack anyone?
All I saw was a dog jump up and bark at someone after they tried to grab his neck.
The only one acting aggressively in the video is the policeman who shot the dog.

"All I saw was a dog jump up and bark at someone after they tried to grab his neck."
You just answered your own question. That IS the attack.

The cop shouldn't have to wait until he's actually bitten to be able to protect himself from the possibility of being bitten. If the dog is jumping up and barking at you, and nobody's controlling it, that's more than enough evidence that he might bite. The dog looked aggressive, it acted aggressive. The cop shouldn't have to assume that the dog is totally safe when it looks anything but safe. The cop should be allowed to defend himself on the threat of bodily harm. He shouldn't have to wait until he's actually received bodily harm.

 

[DugMachine]

snip

Look, I'm sure you are superman and can dodge bullets if you had to with the grace of a ballerina but I'm just not discussing this anymore. The fact of the matter is within a few posts I've had my grandfather, father, uncle and cousins all insulted because a police officer tried to defend himself.

Not everyone deals with adrenaline the same, even actual trained soldiers can totally lose all sense of control when shit hits the fan. I too was a lifeguard and it's not a demanding job. I saved a few people and yes it's a rush but nowhere near "Holy shit I might just get mauled by this dog if I don't protect myself." This cop could well have a phobia of dogs? Nobody has brought that up.

Was there a better way to deal with it? Yes of course there was. But it didn't happen and whether he handled it in a controlled manner or aggressively (like he did) he made the right call one way or another. It's. A. Fucking. Dog.

I'm not superman at all, neither do I have any wish to insult you. I also agree: being a lifeguard is not a demanding job 99% of the time (but it pays decently in summer), except you need to be there for that 1% when shit hits the fan.

No, not everyone deals with adrenaline the same, yes, perhaps the cop just freaked out and this is a lone case (although I don't believe that from the footage).

All of that could be true, but it still isn't acceptable. Training is there to be relied on, especially for people who have a high chance of being confronted by a situation like that. I know people who get confronted with medical emergencies, CPR, and the like every single day and they get called on their mistakes as well.

Do they need to be fired and stigmatised for the rest of their lives? No, but neither should their mistakes be dismissed because "It's. A. Fucking. Dog."

I apologize. I'm a bit upset at the majority of this thread. You are right on many points. The dog really shouldn't have been shot, and the cop did make a mistake but it's already over and done with and personally I don't know what I would have done in a situation like that.

 

[Best of the 3]

Honestly, I don't see why so many shits should be given. The police protected themselves from what could have been a very dangerous situation. What if the dog had come at the police officers and bit one of them. They can do a lot of damage. Would you rather potentially have seen a police officer get mauled so that a dog may live? Would you take a dog's right to safety over a humans?

Furthermore, it really is just a dog. Oh yes but animals are innocent, blah blah. But come on, it's really nothing to get panties in a twist over.

 

[NiPah]

snip

I'm a lifeguard, I only do it in the vacations as a job on the side, I've probably received far less training than any of those cops and should be considered to have far less experience with "high-adrenaline" situations.

Still, why can I then stay calm and try for a reasonable solution in the large amount of situations where a number of people have threatened others or me around the open-air pool I usually guard, together with the few actual serious situations of someone almost breaking their necks and drowning.

They're supposed to be trained, if they can't focus on what they've learned when the situation requires it they shouldn't be cops, period.
Just like doctors, firemen, soldiers, lifeguards and many other professions.

Calm or not calm, shooting the dog was the best option given the situation.
If they attempted to capture the dog:
Dog was agitated, could bite or maul officer, if capture failed dog may run into crowd of civilians and injure one of them.
Pepper spray: Further agitate, inflict pain, and disorient the dog causing it to be even harder to handle, greater chance of injury to officers or crowd.
Taser: Again further agitate and inflict pain on dog, higher chance of injury to officers/civilians, see article on the unpredictability of tasered animals: http://www.abc4.com/content/news/state/story/tasing-dog-shooting-dog-dozer/SO0rZUC9Ek6dlXuzvZCVGw.cspx
Release cuffed individual to handle animal: Individual was already acting erratic, would have taken too long and there is no guarantee he will compile and restrain dog (as he had already failed to do so previously), possibility he may run or command dog to attack.
Shoot dog: high chance of success, no injury to officers or civilians, however does result in death of dog.

While no one can say what state of mind the officer was in while shooting the dog, its clear he made the correct choice.

 

[Belated]

Honestly, I don't see why so many shits should be given. The police protected themselves from what could have been a very dangerous situation. What if the dog had come at the police officers and bit one of them. They can do a lot of damage. Would you rather potentially have seen a police officer get mauled so that a dog may live? Would you take a dog's right to safety over a humans?

Furthermore, it really is just a dog. Oh yes but animals are innocent, blah blah. But come on, it's really nothing to get panties in a twist over.

My sentiments exactly. The cops shouldn't have to just assume the dog means no harm when it's barking at them and moving towards them. They shouldn't have to wait until they've already been bitten to be able to protect themselves. A long time ago, when I was a little kid, I got into a situation where I was confronted by an angry dog, and I gave it the benefit of the doubt, and simply assumed that it meant me no harm.






...I still have the scar to this day.

 

[Denamic]

Idiocy all around. The dog owner was asking for trouble, the police overreacted, the dog came to protect his owner, and the police has no fucking clue how to deal with dogs. There was no reason to aggressively confront an agitated dog like that. Why not let the owner calm it down instead? Stupidity and ignorance ended the dog's life.

 

[Fdzzaigl]

snip

I'm a lifeguard, I only do it in the vacations as a job on the side, I've probably received far less training than any of those cops and should be considered to have far less experience with "high-adrenaline" situations.

Still, why can I then stay calm and try for a reasonable solution in the large amount of situations where a number of people have threatened others or me around the open-air pool I usually guard, together with the few actual serious situations of someone almost breaking their necks and drowning.

They're supposed to be trained, if they can't focus on what they've learned when the situation requires it they shouldn't be cops, period.
Just like doctors, firemen, soldiers, lifeguards and many other professions.

Calm or not calm, shooting the dog was the best option given the situation.
If they attempted to capture the dog:
Dog was agitated, could bite or maul officer, if capture failed dog may run into crowd of civilians and injure one of them.
Pepper spray: Further agitate, inflict pain, and disorient the dog causing it to be even harder to handle, greater chance of injury to officers or crowd.
Taser: Again further agitate and inflict pain on dog, higher chance of injury to officers/civilians, see article on the unpredictability of tasered animals: http://www.abc4.com/content/news/state/story/tasing-dog-shooting-dog-dozer/SO0rZUC9Ek6dlXuzvZCVGw.cspx
Release cuffed individual to handle animal: Individual was already acting erratic, would have taken too long and there is no guarantee he will compile and restrain dog (as he had already failed to do so previously), possibility he may run or command dog to attack.
Shoot dog: high chance of success, no injury to officers or civilians, however does result in death of dog.

While no one can say what state of mind the officer was in while shooting the dog, its clear he made the correct choice.

You didn't consider all the options, in fact, none of your options considered what is the most important in this situation imo: talk it over.

The whole situation of the dog feeling it's owner was being threatened could be avoided in the first place: the guy wasn't threatening anyone: instead of immediately cuffing him, just tell him to leave the crime scene and move his car out of there. Seeing the way he immediately responded to the commands of the officers, it is likely that he would have responded.

Secondly, when in the conflict situation with the dog, the officers didn't consider to let the situation cool off on its own by letting the owner secure his own dog. Acting irratic? Bullshit, he audibly yelled at his own dog to back off and begged not to shoot it, there is zero reason to believe he would have done something as illogical as ordered his dog to assault fully armed policemen.

The entire thing is absurd and should never have happened in the first place: why was that guy apprehended when others were also recording the situation meters away for example (you visible see a few people standing close to the scene on the film).

 

[NiPah]

snip

Calm or not calm, shooting the dog was the best option given the situation.
If they attempted to capture the dog:
Dog was agitated, could bite or maul officer, if capture failed dog may run into crowd of civilians and injure one of them.
Pepper spray: Further agitate, inflict pain, and disorient the dog causing it to be even harder to handle, greater chance of injury to officers or crowd.
Taser: Again further agitate and inflict pain on dog, higher chance of injury to officers/civilians, see article on the unpredictability of tasered animals: http://www.abc4.com/content/news/state/story/tasing-dog-shooting-dog-dozer/SO0rZUC9Ek6dlXuzvZCVGw.cspx
Release cuffed individual to handle animal: Individual was already acting erratic, would have taken too long and there is no guarantee he will compile and restrain dog (as he had already failed to do so previously), possibility he may run or command dog to attack.
Shoot dog: high chance of success, no injury to officers or civilians, however does result in death of dog.

While no one can say what state of mind the officer was in while shooting the dog, its clear he made the correct choice.

You didn't consider all the options, in fact, none of your options considered what is the most important in this situation imo: talk it over.

The whole situation of the dog feeling it's owner was being threatened could be avoided in the first place: the guy wasn't threatening anyone: instead of immediately cuffing him, just tell him to leave the crime scene and move his car out of there. Seeing the way he immediately responded to the commands of the officers, it is likely that he would have responded.

Secondly, when in the conflict situation with the dog, the officers didn't consider to let the situation cool off on its own by letting the owner secure his own dog. Acting irratic? Bullshit, he audibly yelled at his own dog to back off and begged not to shoot it, there is zero reason to believe he would have done something as illogical as ordered his dog to assault fully armed policemen.

The entire thing is absurd and should never have happened in the first place: why was that guy apprehended when others were also recording the situation meters away for example (you visible see a few people standing close to the scene on the film).

Here's a longer video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ffwxaTpJTyI

The man was arrested for obstruction, not for recording a crime scene as has repeatedly been erroneously stated. There is an active hostage situation with armed robbery suspects and the individual pulls up with music blaring and starts acting erratically and has a very large weapon (dog). As put by Hawthorne Police Lt. Scott Swain:

"Rosby stopped in the intersection with music blaring from his windows" and that cops couldn't hear what was happening. Swain said, "It's distracting the officers. It's interfering with what they are able to hear. It's not just a party call. It's an armed robbery call. The officers need to hear what's going on with the people being called out of the residence."

Swain added, "I know it's the dog's master, and more than likely not going to attack him, (but) we've got a guy handcuffed that's kind of defenseless. We have a duty to defend him, too."

 

[Negatempest]

So the response of some of these people is, the police don't know how to handle the dog? Are you kidding me? Did anyone actually pay attention to that size of the beast? A dog that big can easily take down a single individual no problem. And I SAW the whole video. The police officers literally waited the last second to shoot the dog. The dog was getting closer and closer and more aggressive. The moment the dog even looked like it was going to lounge, the police shot it. Police Officers are not equipped to handle animals, period. That is what the dog/animal police are for, they carry the nets and stuff.

What I'm getting from these "pro-dog" complaints is that they do not know how to handle an aggressive dog either. Cops don't carry nooses in their cars. And tasering or pepper spraying a dog would be stupid and reckless.

 

[manic_depressive13]

Do tell, what do you propose should be used to control crime without police?

OT: yoloswag shitstain gets his dog shot by doing everything in his power to provoke the cops, but it still must be the cop's fault because, as we all know they are state sponsored murder robots.

Well given that the main indicator of crime in any given country is the wealth gap and social inequality, I would start by addressing that disparity. But why confront the cause when you can just keep policing the symptoms.

Anyway, if a police officer can't react with greater maturity, professionalism and self control than any other fuckwit with a gun, I don't see what makes them deserving of the title of protector.

 

[Something Amyss]

Fine. I don?t like it when the MAJORITY of police get insulted, is that better?

Not particularly, but it's a step in the right direction, I guess.

The police in this country have a terrible track record. If you want to pretend otherwise, fine. The Police themselves have bred everything from distrust to hate and enforced that barrier.

 

[The Inquisitive Mug]

I hate seeing people in this thread refer to the dog as a weapon. Dogs are not weapons. You can't shoot a weapon to death. And last I checked, tasers work just fine on canines if you're really that concerned for your safety. Of course, as has been stated, shooting the dog was not necessarily an act of malice. It could have been a snap judgement call. Unfortunately, it was the wrong call, and I would have hoped that people that we have given authority and guns to would have been able to make a better one. As a result, a dog is dead.

EDIT: In regards to the link posted by NiPah (http://www.abc4.com/content/news/state/story/tasing-dog-shooting-dog-dozer/SO0rZUC9Ek6dlXuzvZCVGw.cspx)): This is not real evidence to me that tasing a dog is ineffective. The only opponent in this article to using a taser to subdue a dog is a single police lieutenant from the same police department that shot the dog to death. There are no studies or statistics cited. We have only his word, and it's in his best interests to side with his department.

 

[NiPah]

Dogs are weapons, the fact that it dies when shot does not effect that label. As for finding first hand accounts from police officers "not real evidence", I'm sorry to tell you there aren't many studies that taser dogs to see how effective it is in stopping them.
Color me surprised if there is an actual study which tasers dogs, I would find it quite inhuman and ludicrous (or maybe a meta study which takes in multiple accounts from officers and civilians on tasing dogs, but you wouldn't believe it because they are mean to dogs).