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monkeyh wrote:Sorry to tar them all with the same brush, but american police seem a bit trigger happy when it comes to animals, bit like when they shot all them endangered lions / tigers etc that some idiot let loose, (couldn't they have darted them?).

Once again:
POLICE ARE NOT SUPPOSED TO BE DEALING WITH ANIMALS.

When police are called in, there is only one feasible way for them to deal with a situation involving animals.

And really, the "lions/tigers" that some idiot let loose were actually running wild. As in, out of their enclosures where they could attack people if they weren't put down. And once again, "just darting" something isn't that easy. It requires knowledge of the basics of the animals weight, metabolism, reaction to tranquilizers, etc.

Still think execution was a bit OTT.

Yeah, well there's not crap they can do about it. SOP for police is if an animal is threatening themselves or someone else, put it down.

But since police have at least some stupid and/or bored members, as well as some level of corruption, should they be able to interpret "cat sniffing their boots" as "aggressive" and shoot the cat?

Melissia wrote: Barking alone does not indicate aggression, no matter how much you might try to claim otherwise.

The claim was that it is a neutral thing that can go either way.

Melissia wrote: It didn't say there's any aggressive stance being taken, or a defensive stance for that matter. Only that it was barking.

"This article does not give enough information, but I'm pretty sure that the dog wasn't barking in joy."

Where in his post are you getting that he said that the dog was acting one way or another. It seems to me that he stated quite clearly that he has no way of knowing. He says that chances are it was aggressive in nature, but he never claims that that was the case.

Why do you always come into these threads trying to start argument? Maybe you should spend some time away from OT and get into the 40k tactics thread or something. Spend your time posting helpful articles for people instead of getting riled up over silly threads.

Necroshea: When he compared barking to hissing, any respect I have for his apparently imaginary experience with animals was thrown out the window.

The two are not equivalent, not even close.

Melissia wrote:But since police have at least some stupid and/or bored members, as well as some level of corruption, should they be able to interpret "cat sniffing their boots" as "aggressive" and shoot the cat?

What does this have to do with anything?

The "stupidity", "boredom" or "corruption" have nothing to do with SOP regarding animals.

Cats also can't really cause that much harm to a person, not like a dog could.

Now, if we're talking about a mountain lion or something it's a different story. A mountain lion getting that close to someone behaving relatively peaceably probably would be shot, just because as people will tell you: "wild animals are unpredictable animals".

Melissia wrote:Necroshea: When he compared barking to hissing, any respect I have for his apparently imaginary experience with animals was thrown out the window.

The two are not equivalent, not even close.

I agree with you totally, cats and dogs work in totally different ways. However, I've never seen a cat hiss in a friendly way. I won't pretend to understand cats, but I do know through experience that a hiss is not a good thing. While a hiss is generally negative a bark is neutral.

Howz about this guys. We just step away from the thread, or watch it unfold from a distance. When and if we get more info on what exactly happened we can get back to discussing things with new found facts and angles regarding the situation.

Necroshea wrote:I've never seen a cat hiss in a friendly way.

... which was my point.

A better comparison with barking would actually be purring-- cats can purr both when happy or when agitated or scared.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Kanluwen wrote:Cats also can't really cause that much harm to a person, not like a dog could.

Why should that matter

They can always CLAIM that they're being threatened, they think the cat was feral and disease ridden, etc.

Growling is the equivilant of hissing not barking...


Barkign has many uses and functions. Barking is a means of warning others of danger, bringing attention to intruders/agressors, letting others know that they are not welcome, communicating stress, tension, nervousness,etc.

barking often preceedes agression, but agression oftencomes when attempts to scare/drive away via barking has failed...

Can we simply file this away under "cops being gung-ho a-holes" where it belongs?

Melissia wrote:

poda_t wrote:No, I actually I do not fail at interpreting animal body languge or sounds.

Yes you did. It did not say growling. It didn't say snapping. It didn't say there's any aggressive stance being taken, or a defensive stance for that matter. Only that it was barking.

Dogs can bark when they're happy. Dogs can bark when they're just plain bored. Dogs can bark when they're mad. Or when they're just saying hi. Barking alone does not indicate aggression, no matter how much you might try to claim otherwise. You might as well say that greeting someone is aggressive, and therefor you should be able to shoot anyone who greets you.

and intentionally misreading me and rephrasing my statments as arguments against me is not conducive of me appreciating your statments. I know that dogs can bark for any reason, but their stance and posture go a long way to explaining the dogs intent. I repeat again that there is a clear difference in the sound of an excited bark and the sound of an aggressive bark. The dog's posture and behaviour also contribute to the dog's intent, and from what I read in the article of the dog's behavior is completely inconsistent with the behaviour of a happy excited puppy.

Under the circumstances the article mentions several crucial things;
Townsend was charged with having a dangerous dog
The dog was at large
Townsend was charged with not having the dog vaccinated.
The dog was barking at the officers and maintaining a wary distance

The police were patently aware of the danger posed by this dog. It came up to the officers knee, which is large enough to cause extensive damage if the dog attacked, and the dog was a german shephard (mix). Considering that German Shephards are used as attack dogs specifically because of their capacity for agression, there are already plenty of flags that give reasonable evidence that the officers acted in accordance. (in fact, the ideal dog size is one that comes up between knee and mid-thigh, as attack dogs need to be transported between locations, if the animal is too large it poses the danger of having a bite that is too large and cause life-threatening damage, and of course, avoiding health problems that are the bane of every over-sized dog) There are no details given as to growling, and that coudl very well be, as it states in the article, that the two witnesses had just turned onto the street, and the only thing might have been capable of hearing is the barking. Either way, german shephards are not that renowned for being incredibly friendly people loving dogs. Collies are friendly. In fact they are annoying in how friendly they are. Poodles, friendly. Labs? Friendly. Greyhounds? Relatively harmless. German Shephards? There is a clear and patent reason they are classed as attack/guard dogs. The same thing with rotweilers and pitbulls. There's a good reason why those breeds are also heavily policed because of their use as pit dogs.

as insistently as you want to misread me melissa, there are things absent in this article. For instance, was the dog growling or not. That's irrelevant. I've encountered dogs that were agressive that haven't growled. As I mentioned, I have to watch out for this type of behaviour whenever I go to the park because my dog is not castrated, and while he is usually docile, I can't know how he will react to another uncastrated dog, or how it will react in response.

If the dog was happy and friendly, it would not have been barking at the officers walking towards them and backing off. It would ahve come and nuzzled right up to them. I have never seen an excited dog bark at someone because they are happy, while at the same time avoid at all costs coming near the source of their happiness. This article screams sensational anti-establishment bias.

Since I own dogs...one of the first thing I would do...is check the fence line to see any opening my two knuckleheads might get through....even if it hints as a possible route of escape. It gets 2 by 4 or 4 by 4. I spent enough money on my two dogs. Also...I am very aware on what could happen if they get loose. I would not fault the cops if they shoot my shiba if he acted in that way against them. I even replace their rounds expended

Well my main complaint is that they opened fire on the poor bastard. The Police just seem trigger happy especially if they charged the poor guy even though literally they pulled out their guns and fired the darn thing five times. You only need one bullet for a puppy. Even then the problem is if there is a stray animal call animal control.. Thats their job.....

Not the officers.

I mean i live right next to a friggen forest. I see wolves, coyotes, foxes, helk i even saw a bear. I am not going to call the police. I am going to tell the rangers at the forest preserve which is like 2 miles away and tell them there is a bear in the area, and they will grab their twelve gauge and kill the darn thing.

[/
Your opening was rude and unnecessary

Police aren't supposed to "handle" dogs. If they're called, usually it's because a dog has attacked someone and the person who was attacked wants to file charges against the owner for negligence. In this case it sounds like the officers were called in about a stray, and seeing as how they don't carry tranquilizer guns(since tranquilizer guns require very specific ratios of tranquilizer to mass of the animal, metabolism, etc) they likely would have tried to approach or call the dog to get it to come to them to check it for tags.

If the dog had bitten someone or was acting like it was rabid, pretty much the only humane thing they can do is shoot it. Pepper spray, tasers, etc can all cause death or permanent injuries fairly easily in dogs. Which if that had happened would be construed as "animal cruelty".

And just as an FYI: there's a reason pepper spray or "ganging up on someone"(what the feth is this supposed to mean? Cops "gang up on someone"? Where? You mean during an arrest? That's called forcing submission) are used. They don't result in harmful side-effects even used relatively improperly...you know, side-effects like death.

Want to leave OWS out of this thread? We still have the UC Davis one going

Let me further paint a clearer picture. Has anyone ever actually tried controlling a dog that was actively ingaged in lockings jaws around someone's body and savaging it? At this point, the only thing you can do, becuase of the inherent danger to the subject the dog is attacking, is to try to remove the dog from the other person. Try and do that, and now it bites you instead, and startes gleefully sawing its teeth through your hand/wrist etc. Trying to control a dog after it has attacked and is still attacking is near impossible, unless the dog is trained to respond to your commands. Once the dog has attacked, the officers would be not be in a position to control the dog. They can't shoot now because they will strike the other officer, and producing the baton also poses a risk of striking the partner and injuring him further.

I guarantee that Jihadin or any others that have served in the military can back me up on this. When you are in a dangerous position, you don't have the minutes to assess your response. You need to make the decision now and hope to god it was the right one.

How about backing off and calling animal control? Imagine if they took this attitude towards bombs-- instead of backing off and calling the bomb squad, they just shoot the damn thing.

If the dog had charged at the officer or somesuch it'd be understandable. But a dog that's merely barking... the damned canines at this house bark at EVERYTHING. Even eachother.

What would happen if the police back off and called animal control and then the dog ranned off and bit a kid? Then everyone be on the cops for not doing their job on protecting the public

Kilkrazy wrote:This has happened before.

The conclusion is that the police are fully entitled to shoot dogs that might possibly bite them.

So police can shoot any dog, any where, any time? Because any dog might Possibly bite them.

I wouldn't.

Me personnaly...I peppered spray the little fuzzy bastage. I do not like popping rounds off in a residential area since Murphey a mofo. I wouldn't take a chance of a misplaced round. Me pepper spraying the dog is in no reference to OWS

Aduro wrote:

Kilkrazy wrote:This has happened before.

The conclusion is that the police are fully entitled to shoot dogs that might possibly bite them.

So police can shoot any dog, any where, any time? Because any dog might Possibly bite them.

I think context is fairly important here...

Jihadin wrote:Me personnaly...I peppered spray the little fuzzy bastage. I do not like popping rounds off in a residential area since Murphey a mofo. I wouldn't take a chance of a misplaced round.

Makes sense to me.

Actually, many gardeners mix hot sauce in to their watering specifically to discourage dogs or cats from nosing around in the garden.

Melissia wrote:

Jihadin wrote:Me personnaly...I peppered spray the little fuzzy bastage. I do not like popping rounds off in a residential area since Murphey a mofo. I wouldn't take a chance of a misplaced round.

Makes sense to me.

Actually, many gardeners mix hot sauce in to their watering specifically to discourage dogs or cats from nosing around in the garden.

Random Tangent... I tried making a mix like that to discourage a gerbil from chewing on stuff it wasn't supposed to. Turns out the gerbil Really liked the stuff and would lick it all off. Then chew on the objects anyway.

What a ridiculous parody of a news story.

poda_t wrote:Under the circumstances the article mentions several crucial things;
Townsend was charged with having a dangerous dog
The dog was at large
Townsend was charged with not having the dog vaccinated.
The dog was barking at the officers and maintaining a wary distance

So what we can conclude from this (given that these are simply charges that the cops threw on the guy after the fact): the dog was barking at the cops from a distance.

This justified shooting the dog five times.

I'm sure you can see the absurdity of this defense of the assailants.

biccat wrote:

poda_t wrote:Under the circumstances the article mentions several crucial things;
Townsend was charged with having a dangerous dog
The dog was at large
Townsend was charged with not having the dog vaccinated.
The dog was barking at the officers and maintaining a wary distance

So what we can conclude from this (given that these are simply charges that the cops threw on the guy after the fact): the dog was barking at the cops from a distance.

This justified shooting the dog five times.

I'm sure you can see the absurdity of this defense of the assailants.

I'm pretty sure what happened was this Townsend guy was annoying them and perhaps even being an arse to them and to "one-up" him they killed his dog to spite him as they knew they could claim it was a danger on the grounds that those defending them are citing here.

Bottom line: oh you want to be difficult? Well your dog is dead. We win.

Because the owner was a dick the dog died.

As for the needing to protect the community/local kids? I'd be pissed if cops came into my neighborhood and fired off five rounds to kill a stray dog without tryng to capture/eliminate it in a way that doesn't allow the possability of bullets flying around my neighborhood...

Asherian Command wrote:
If you lived in IL, you would know that in the sururbs the police here get horribely bored because there are no major problems, they usually just pull people over and they are usually trigger happy.

When I was 15 a distinguished member of the Naperville police department drew his weapon on my friends and I while attempting to arrest us for TPing a house belonging to the parents of another friend. The running joke is that Naperville is an awful lot like Sandford.

CT GAMER wrote:

biccat wrote:

poda_t wrote:Under the circumstances the article mentions several crucial things;
Townsend was charged with having a dangerous dog
The dog was at large
Townsend was charged with not having the dog vaccinated.
The dog was barking at the officers and maintaining a wary distance

So what we can conclude from this (given that these are simply charges that the cops threw on the guy after the fact): the dog was barking at the cops from a distance.

This justified shooting the dog five times.

I'm sure you can see the absurdity of this defense of the assailants.

I'm pretty sure what happened was this Townsend guy was annoying them and perhaps even being an arse to them and to "one-up" him they killed his dog to spite him as they knew they could claim it was a danger on the grounds that those defending them are citing here.

That's grasping for some serious straws. Nowhere does it say that Townsend had any contact with the officers who shot the dog, until after he "went looking for his dog".

Bottom line: oh you want to be difficult? Well your dog is dead. We win.

Because the owner was a dick the dog died.

No, because the dog got loose, acted in a manner consistent with a rabid dog, and barked at officers who likely were called in about a rabid animal--the dog died.

I understand the urge to play "Fill in the Blanks" with news stories is great, but it only leads to ridiculous and outlandish theories. What next, are you going to say the cops bashed a hole in the fence so that they could kill the children's "beloved puppy" and traumatize them as a way to get back at Townsend?

Necroshea wrote:Javel Townsend said his two sons, ages 10 and 11, are crying and hollering in their sleep, calling out their beloved puppy’s name.
Seems like an attempt to have you side with the writer by using children

Of course it is, because it has little or no relevance to the story.

“I guess police got fed up with him barking and shot him,” Townsend said Thursday. “I want to know why they had to shoot him.”
Key word here, guess

The key words here are, "I want to know why"

Christy Matthews of Johnsburg said she witnessed the dog’s shooting.

She grew up on Woodridge Street (which intersects with Lotus near Townsend’s home) and was driving down the street when she said she saw a Round Lake Beach police officer aiming a weapon at a barking dog.
Ok, a witness to the event, this gives us an idea of what happened

Altgeld was barking a lot, but was not foaming at the mouth or acting aggressively, Matthews said.
A stray dog barking at you sounds pretty agressive to me

Yes, and stray cats mewling is aggressive behavior too, it's not like cats or dogs have a specific action that could be interpreted as aggression; like growling or hissing.

“The dog did not do anything. It wasn’t even a big dog — it came up maybe to the officer’s knee,” Matthews said.
Big enough to cause you harm if they wanted to

Fair enough

She described herself as an animal lover. She also owns a shepherd mix, which is a vocal breed, she said.
Red flag here. Her opinions could very well be shaping her interpretation of events

Just like you (see below)

Townsend was issued tickets for the dog not having shots, for owning a dangerous dog and for the dog being at large. He is due in court Nov. 1 and is in discussions with an attorney.
Witness has just lost credibility

Your opinion seems to have shaped your interpretation of credibility. I find it odd that a man named "Townsend" being issued a ticket makes a witness named "Matthews" statements not credible. The two being unrelated short of the woman holding a "PETA against KFC" sign while she carries more credibility than the cop that needed 5 shots to down a mid-to small size dog. He either missed 4 times, endangering the community, or discharged his weapon excessively into an animal that was already dead or dying after hit one. But I digress.

monkeyh wrote:Sorry to tar them all with the same brush, but american police seem a bit trigger happy when it comes to animals, bit like when they shot all them endangered lions / tigers etc that some idiot let loose, (couldn't they have darted them?).

I'm interested to know weather or not the police in your country carry dart guns with them wherever they go, or if the London metro police own tranquilizer guns at all, and then further if more rural departments have them. I can say with certainty that a majority (if not all) patrol officers in the States do not carry such "devices" with them on a regular basis. A more correct statement is "couldn't he have contacted Animal Control and let them deal with the problem."


I was a little disappointed when I read the article. Before opening I had this vision of the cop leaning over the owners fence and shooting the dog. Then I bothered to read the article. The poor animal got loose, either because his owner was negligent or because he was curious and made a way out to explore. Unless I missed it the article just kept calling the dog a "shepherd mix" I see that at least one person has assumed that means German Shepard but it could easily be an Old English Sheep Dog...which is about as non threatening as sheep dogs get, or a Collie mix which used to be quite popular. I don't generally think of Collies barking as threatening.


Granted Rough Collies are a fairly large breed and dangerous when they want to be.