It’s become far too frequent to hear stories of law enforcement officers using deadly force on dogs – typically with little or no cause to do so.
In Austin, police responded to a call at the wrong address and shot and killed the man’s dog. In California, police shot and killed an 11-year-old lab after responding to a false burglar alarm. In Kentucky, a momma pit bull was shot and killed and her puppies put to death.
These are not isolated incidents.
Sadly, Miami-Dade police officers have also been in the news for similar matters. Tuesday night, officers shot and killed a woman’s dog after it got out of her yard and was reportedly barking. There are few details on the case, and police say the matter is “under investigation”. And a similar incident happened in Miami last September.
Guns are deadly weapons, and should only be fired in the most serious and necessary of circumstances. A barking dog hardly qualifies. While I wholeheartedly respect law enforcement – and appreciate how difficult their jobs are, I also believe that most are not properly trained to deal with animals, and that is a situation that must be remedied.
This behavior is completely unacceptable, and as citizens we cannot tolerate it. Tranquilizers should be used on animals except in the most dangerous of conditions, and officers should be trained on animal behavior – just as they’re trained on human behavior. There’s no excuse for wielding a deadly weapon in response to a bark or growl. It’s excessive force, and demonstrates a serious lack of judgement. We can only hope the Miami-Dade officer who killed this family pet is forced to face SOME sort of disciplinary consequence.
RIP Bosha.
As a person with many friends and family in law enforcement, I can say with absolute conviction that at least in my neck of the woods, the people I know who wear a badge do not kill dogs without due cause.
Due cause however, to an officer who has no first hand knowledge of the dog approaching him is much different than due cause in the owners mind. An officer is not going to shoot and kill a barking dog. It’s a waste of a ton of paperwork. However, if a police officer is called to respond to a dog at large, it is normally not your standard everyday loose dog out on a walk-about looking for a good trash can to raid. Officers get called in when dogs are displaying signs of aggression.
As for the wrong address dog that got killed. That man had a chance to lock his dog up and did not take it. Nor did he discourage his dog from making aggressive advances towards the officer as he was taking the man into custody. Simply locking his dog in the yard as requested while things got sorted out would have saved the dogs life. I don’t blame the officer, I blame the owner.
My dogs were out in my fenced back yard the other night when my whole neighborhood was surrounded by screaming cop cars. I looked out the front window and saw officers crawling out of their cars like they were on a mission and not knowing what was going on, I brought my dogs in. Why? Because had an officer needed to jump my fence to apprehend somebody, my dogs would have viewed him as an intruder, gone after him and probably gotten shot.
People are so willing to vilify officers of the law and not take responsibility for their own actions. Are there officers out there who abuse their power. Yes there are and you may have one or two cases of that in your write up here but for the most part, cops do not want to kill the family pet.
The situations you refer to here are old news. On any given day across our country law enforcement officers put their lives on the line for you and me. The fact that the same old stories keep popping up of officers shooting and killing dogs, only proves to me that these are very isolated incidences. An officer killing a family pet without due cause will be local if not national news and the over use of these isolated stories only solidifies in my mind that it is not cause for a nation wide vilification of all officers forced to use deadly force on dogs.
Becky – Thank you for your comment. Perhaps my article came across as overly harsh. I’m not looking to vilify officers – I wholeheartedly respect and appreciate law enforcement. However, there has been a rash of these incidents, and I do believe most law enforcement officials are not properly trained to deal with animals. Animals should not be shot because they’re loose, barking or otherwise doing anything other than viciously attacking someone. Period. It’s not a commentary on officers in general, just on this aspect of their authority.