Frustrated - Come ON People!

[Mrs.K]

Originally Posted by msvette2u

You speak as if the system is broken and in some ways I'm sure it is.
The legal system period could stand some improvements, but in the situation you posted the link to, there's a legit reason the guy was shot, it's not lack of training, it's just how the situation played out.
I remember a few years ago where a mentally handicapped boy was shot in his yard because he had a toy gun that looked very real. The cops thought it was real, and when you saw it, you'd think that too. It wasn't pink plastic, it was black and looked real.

Would you say more training would have prevented that?

Sometimes things aren't "right" or "wrong", they just are.

PS. The details may be wrong on the shooting, it's been a few years. Just in case they are wrong.
But it happens, that's the main point.

Honestly, I think it is broken. But it's not only the US System. It's everywhere. Greece, Germany, France... anywhere you turn and look, the systems seem to be broken.

However, I don't want to make this too political.

Speaking from experience, I used to sit in a wheelchair for a year because of my right leg. People that have seen me personally may have noticed a slight limp, sometimes even a moderate limp. It doesn't impair me, I can do what i have to do and even do SAR, however, the limp is there and that accident is the reason why I'm not a Cop or in the Military.

Anyhow, I know what it is like to sit in a wheelchair and depending what type of wheel chair you have, if you are an athlete or not.

Anyhow, that guy had one arm and one leg. He was waving with a metal object which turned out to be a pen. How hard can it possibly be to overturn and restrain a double amputee with one leg and one arm. This doesn't go towards you but "Give me a break!"
I know, I could have easily been overturned and restrained, no need to shoot, just knock that darn wheelchair over but don't shoot!

Anyhow, since I don't want this to turn political, I'll leave it at that. I just wanted to make a point that I believe that there is a much bigger issue at hand than just "Cops shooting dogs".

[Olivers mama]

I live in Calif - where we overpay for everything. At least in my region, we don't pay $10K for a K9, so I don't know where that came from. Another example of people moving their mouths without benefit of facts.

Saying a cop is wrong for shooting a dog is not bashing. Demeaning an entire profession is bashing.

I did not start this thread to be pro- or anti-cop. I started it to search for answers to help us all. Private citizens who happen to have large dogs, LEOs - ALL of us. I'm asking for suggestions - I like the idea of training seminars. PSA to serve all of us would be helpful. TV & the web are the best places to start, IMO. I don't think it would hurt any of us to re-think our practices regarding our homes & dogs.

And this isn't just about cops. It's about any emergency that may happen at our home or nearby. Firemen. EMS. If we need help & dial 9-1-1, don't we want/need those people to be able to enter to help us (as we've asked them by dialing for an emergency) without being harmed? And if so, how can we turn this around?

[Mrs.K]

Originally Posted by Olivers mama

I live in Calif - where we overpay for everything. At least in my region, we don't pay $10K for a K9, so I don't know where that came from. Another example of people moving their mouths without benefit of facts.

Saying a cop is wrong for shooting a dog is not bashing. Demeaning an entire profession is bashing.

I did not start this thread to be pro- or anti-cop. I started it to search for answers to help us all. Private citizens who happen to have large dogs, LEOs - ALL of us. I'm asking for suggestions - I like the idea of training seminars. PSA to serve all of us would be helpful. TV & the web are the best places to start, IMO. I don't think it would hurt any of us to re-think our practices regarding our homes & dogs.

And this isn't just about cops. It's about any emergency that may happen at our home or nearby. Firemen. EMS. If we need help & dial 9-1-1, don't we want/need those people to be able to enter to help us (as we've asked them by dialing for an emergency) without being harmed? And if so, how can we turn this around?

the question is, was it always like that and do we just now find about these cases more and more because of the fast presentation of news on the internet, or is this just something that started happening with the increased ownership of dogs?

[GSDolch]

Watching an old episode of Bones last night, Bones and Booth go into the killers home and there is his Doberman barking at them like he's going to eat them. Booth proceedes to tell the dogs "Oh come on, sit down or I'm gonna shoot you!!!"

The dog complies.....


See, that's all it takes.

[Olivers mama]

VERY GOOD point, Mrs K - hadn't thought about that!

GSDolch - so we need to train our dogs better?! BTW - I appreciate the levity - helps us all (or maybe just me ) in finding solutions. When you're fighting cancer, Humor is indeed, a necessary part of treatment!

[GSDolch]

Originally Posted by Olivers mama

VERY GOOD point, Mrs K - hadn't thought about that!

GSDolch - so we need to train our dogs better?! BTW - I appreciate the levity - helps us all (or maybe just me ) in finding solutions. When you're fighting cancer, Humor is indeed, a necessary part of treatment!

*nods* I couldn't help but bust out laughing, my husband looked at me like I was crazy, "It's not that funny"....I just told him it was a dog thing and left it at that lol.

If only it were that easy.

[lhczth]

IF people actually want these threads to remain open then people need to remain civil to one another. I would bet that the majority of people posting in these threads would NEVER say the things they do if they were face to face.

IF people can not remain civil then the moderators and Admin have two options. We can go through and edit posts and send a LOT of warnings, probably putting many of you on "time outs" and even banning a few of you (since you have run out of "chances") OR we close the thread.

So, those are your options. You guys make the choice.

ADMIN Lisa

[LouCastle]

The OP asked me to come to this thread and give some insight from the LEO POV. I retired as a Sergeant with nearly 30 years of service on two police agencies. I spent one year as a Reserve Police Officer and three years as a full-time Police Officer at Azusa (California) PD, and the remainder of my time at the Culver City PD in the City of Culver City, (also in CA). In addition to working as a Patrol Officer, I've worked many specialized assignments including as a K-9 handler, K-9 Trainer and Instructor, as a Traffic Officer, in Vice and Narcotics, SWAT, Detectives, as an investigator on SIT (a liability/shooting investigation team), Field Training Officer, Personnel and Training, and Department Rangemaster and Use of Force Instructor.

While I think that education programs that teach LEOs how to deal with dogs are a good idea, I don't think that they'll be effective on those who are afraid of dogs. Through my experience as a K−9 trainer, I learned how to prevent a dog from biting but I know that it's not going to work on all dogs. If I come up against one that it doesn’t work on, I'm would not risk my career or my life by "taking a bite" to prevent having to shoot a strange dog that was trying to bite me. I've seen too many dog bites up close and personal. Usually in these cases where an officer shoots a dog, there's no one around who is going to quickly call the dog off if he stops fighting. The bite will go on until the dog tires or he's stopped by the officer. In many of these cases, the officer is alone and so the burden of preventing or stopping the bite would be on him. It's far easier to stop a dog before a bite occurs, than it is to stop a dog that is already attached to you.

Training may help some officers deal with these situations but you are never going to make an impression on someone who is very fearful of dogs. You can't pick and choose who you send on calls where dogs might be present. Since most of those officers have seen the damage that the police dogs can inflict on someone who is fighting the dog, they're even more afraid than they were when the bites were only in their brain.

As to why those threads get closed, it has nothing to do with being pro or anti police. It has to do with some people letting their emotions get the better of them and turning arguments into personal attacks and making rude comments. Sometimes this happens when they feel they are losing the argument. That behavior isn't limited to these types of discussions, the Ecollar debates frequently go down that road too.

Rarely are all the facts given in a news story. It's their job to sell advertising and to stay in business. When I was a journalism student and then a stringer reporter/photographer for a couple of newspapers, the three most important things in journalism were "accuracy, accuracy and accuracy." Now the direction has changed and the slogan is "If it bleeds, it leads."

So saying something like (to the effect) "Couldn't they just tip his wheelchair over." (to address one such comment about an incident that was brought up) just shows that the author may be ill informed. We used to deal regularly with a man in a wheelchair who would barricade himself in a blind hallway, making it impossible to tip his chair over. So the answer is, "Perhaps they could and perhaps they couldn't." Assuming that they could, and then making statements based on that may just cloud the issue.

It's pretty easy to sit in the safety of one's living room and spend 30 minutes going over a decision an officer made in an instant, that may have cost him his life. Instead, "The 'reasonableness' of a particular use of force must be judged from the perspective of a reasonable officer on the scene, and its calculus must embody an allowance for the fact that police officers are often forced to make split-second decisions about the amount of force necessary in a particular situation." (Graham v. Connor − the USSC decision that gives guidelines for the use of force by LEOs).

As someone who personally arranged for the firing of several cops who "did the wrong thing" I'm hardly a "The cops are always right" kinda guy. I know that there are some who do the wrong thing sometimes, and a few who do the wrong thing frequently. We're chosen from the same gene pool as everyone else. We have the same flaws and faults as the rest of the people walking the planet. I like to think that because of the rigorous background investigations that most cops go through to get the, job that most of the bad guys get weeded out, but still, some slip through. It's never going to be a perfect system. Even if everyone tried to do the right thing, there would be mistakes.

So I really don't have any definitive answers to the problem of LEOs shooting dogs that they think are going to bite them. Since we weren't there, we shouldn't be passing judgment on those officers without having all the facts necessary to do so. Rarely does the average news story have enough information to make an intelligent decision. Those incidents will continue to occur until we get armament that takes people and dogs who are attacking us out of play quickly and reliably, without killing them. Such a tool does not exist at this time.

As far as threads that get locked, that's a matter of self−control, something that not everyone uses. I think it's very much a matter of people making assumptions without having enough facts to base them on, and running with what they "think" happened.

[GSDolch]

While I agree that we should have as many facts as possible before we pass judgement, the public can't keep quiet about something that they feel is wrong. To do so, or to be told that we shouldn't voice our opinion about something IMO does a disservice. Sometimes, without public outcry, an incident will go without an investigation and then, if the event its a bad cop, is left to continue to do as he has been doing.

In all honesty, I only see a few people who seem to be either "pro" or "anti" with many more people taking a middle ground. Cops are people, but sometimes, nothing is done about a cop that does something wrong until people begin to speak up.

[Mrs.K]

So saying something like (to the effect) "Couldn't they just tip his wheelchair over." (to address one such comment about an incident that was brought up) just shows that the author may be ill informed. We used to deal regularly with a man in a wheelchair who would barricade himself in a blind hallway, making it impossible to tip his chair over. So the answer is, "Perhaps they could and perhaps they couldn't." Assuming that they could, and then making statements based on that may just cloud the issue.

That would be me, but honestly, I cannot see a guy, with just one arm and one leg to be so dangerous that a cop feels the need to shoot the guy, especially when it turns out that that metal object was just a pen. Seriously... again, I am not anti-cop but maybe cases like that should be used for training and maybe these are the cases that should be learned from. If you have to shoot a double amputee in a wheel chair... personally to me, that is unacceptable. Unless he's got a bomb belt around his chest and threatens to pull that trigger.

Plus, doesn't a cop learn self-defense? How disarm somebody? What about non-lethal methods like pelet guns or a that taser?

Sorry, I can't keep my mouth shut about a case like that. It makes me extremely angry. There are so many other options to deal with a double amputee in a wheelchair. Lethal Force should be the LAST OPTION!

But whatever, I'm out. Before this one gets locked too.