Current Events > Federal court rules police can shoot a dog if it moves or barks

(+) Yeah! (+)

Funkydog posted...

Given how many dogs are killed and routinely reported as friendly, I think it is very easy to say American cops overreact. Dogs can race towards people for many reasons, heck even just to greet a stranger as a vast majority of friendly dogs will when is a commotion at the door. Even trained dogs are likely to go investigate and then the cop feels compelled to shoot.

Actual statistics or ten hyperfocused news stories?

andri_g posted...

PSA: != means "is not equal to", "is not the same as", etc.

Yes, that's how I was using. Not sure how you're reading my statement to assume otherwise.

nemu posted...

Yes, that's how I was using it. Not sure how you're reading my statement to assume otherwise.

I've seen many who are uncertain how such symbols are meant to be interpreted. To diminish doubt, spell it out.

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nemu posted...

And how many videos is that? Bias through overly focused media coverage is not he best place to form your opinions. Don't get me wrong. There certainly could be an issue with "preventative" dog killing through laziness, malice, or ignorance, but that number is certainly not going to be that full 10,000.

Youre right in that its not carefully compiled data, but Im saying Ive literally never seen one justified dog shooting on camera (which in theory should be easy for the police to provide with body cams) whereas Ive seen at least a handful of completely unjustified and outrageous videos of dogs killing harmless little pups for no reason at all.

It's also not at all likely to happen to regular people considering that's like 0.1% of all dogs.

Pardon, Im not sure I understand what youre saying here

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I've only ever seen like ten stories about it in two years, so the likelihood that it's a major percentage seems fairly unlikely. That's the issue with news stories because they're so emotional that it leads to this idea that these things are way more common. Is bodycam footage publicly available? There's probably hundreds of thousands of hours of footage out there, so most will only pull it when they get a moneymaking headline. I'm sure you could trudge through public reports and compare footage if that's a thing a regular citizen can do.

The total number of dogs killed is 0.1% or somesuch of the entire dog population, so there's extremely little risk for it to actually happen to the average dogowner. We shouldn't ignore small problems, but we also shouldn't overblow their relative impact either.

I think this ultimately boils down to rewording a simple question?

What do you value more? A human life or a dog's life?

Ultimately there is always going to be a scenario where humans walk in and dogs jump up.

"Dog's lives matter more!" people will say the humans should stand there and wait until the dog tears out their throat before defending themselves. Just in case.

"Human lives matter more" people will say the humans should defend themselves before the dog(s) has a chance to attack/kill them. Just in case.

And I love dogs. I'm a huge dog person.

But I don't buy into their weird Internet thing that human life is worthless. Human life matters more. You can't write it into law that you have to wait until it's too late before you defend yourself.

The law has to be you can defend yourself and the practice has to be better dog ownership and police dicipline.

Police tell people to put their dogs in a crate

People, put your dogs in a crate.

Problem solved. It's like the abortion issue.
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not everyone has a chance to put their dogs in a crate. there have been cases where cops got the wrong address and burst into the wrong home, shot some pets and then said "oh sorry. no hard feelings" and left

Zikten posted...

not everyone has a chance to put their dogs in a crate. there have been cases where cops got the wrong address and burst into the wrong home, shot some pets and then said "oh sorry. no hard feelings" and left

And there are cases of unwanted pregnancy where they used condoms and they split.

But these are outliers.

If everyone acted sensibly these would be immensely rare. The issue comes from people not being sensible

You right now are advocating that dogs lives should matter over humans in law because it's unreasonable to expect owners to put their dogs into crates

That's not reasonable.
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nemu posted...

I've only ever seen like ten stories about it in two years, so the likelihood that it's a major percentage seems fairly unlikely. That's the issue with news stories because they're so emotional that it leads to this idea that these things are way more common. Is bodycam footage publicly available? There's probably hundreds of thousands of hours of footage out there, so most will only pull it when they get a moneymaking headline. I'm sure you could trudge through public reports and compare footage if that's a thing a regular citizen can do.

The total number of dogs killed is 0.1% or somesuch of the entire dog population, so there's extremely little risk for it to actually happen to the average dogowner. We shouldn't ignore small problems, but we also shouldn't overblow their relative impact either.

The problem isn't really that some dogs are getting killed unjustly. I mean that is A problem but the real issue here is that cops are being given more and more liberties to do whatever the fuck they want and have no repercussions for any of it.

Right now a Cop can walk into a house, shoot at a poodle, miss, kill a 4yo girl, and then charge the father with murder via felony murder laws because he had a bag of pot in the house.

In the UK cops must file paperwork justifying every single shot discharged. Here, they just shrug and go "I got scared so that's why me and my 6 buddies shot that one sleeping dude 40 times"

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Mr Hangman posted...

What's not reasonable is to leap from the premise of "human lives matter more" to the conclusion of "it's ok to murder dogs at the slightest perception of a threat". It's a fucking dog, not someone drawing a gun at you. Shooting the dog is a wildly disproportionate use of force even when you grant that the officer's life is more important.

In law? No.

Ultimately it's going to come down to "We came into a room and a dog(s) lunged towards me" and you have to decide is it legal to defend yourself in that moment or not.

I don't agree that "The answer is no because it's a wildly disproportionate use of force!" and you wouldn't either if you had ever seen dogs ripping people apart.

Remember police use attack dogs because they are often more effective than humans.

Just put the dogs in the crate.
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Cops are the kind of people who will kill you and then say "Stop resisting" to your corpse.

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Mr Hangman posted...

Almost all self-defense statutes require that you use the least amount of force that could reasonably be expected to protect yourself. You'd be hard pressed to find a scenario in which I'd agree that shooting a dog was the reasonable least-force option.

You can't compare humans to animals dude.

Dogs have paws and teeth and possibly are diseased. If you have to compare it to a human than it would be a human who will not listen to reason and armed with a knife.

Would you say if police walked into a room and a human armed with a knife who was incapable of listening to reason lunged at them, the police shouldn't defend themselves?

Police only use attack dogs to stop someone from fleeing. Totally disingenuous to use that right after claiming dogs "rip people apart".

You're being intellectually dishonest, the point is they are dangerous.

Also you're wrong. They use dogs in all sorts of situations, not just fleeing. There are many scenarios were dogs are more effective than humans.

And fuck your put dogs in the crate bullshit. All the time? When you have no idea police are coming? Put yourself in a crate.

No that's why I said it should be policy that police tell you to put your dog in a crate.
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cops still should pay for what they do if they mess up. if they ended up being in the wrong house, but shot at a dog, missed and killed a human child... they should be penalized for that. as it is right now, cops can do almost anything and rarely if ever pay the price. one time cops literally tossed a flash grenade into a baby's crib and nobody ever got punished for it. the baby survived but I think it's permanently disfigured or something. and the fucked up thing? the guy they were after hadn't been in that house for months. it was just his family but he wasn't living with them. cops just assumed he was and attacked the house

Mr Hangman posted...

^Yes, absolutely. They should have no immunity from liability at all. Probably the one simplest change you could make to bring these violent gangs back in line, providing the courts stuck to it.

unfortunately no lawmaker wants to bring this up. Because they will instantly be branded anti cop and voted out of office. nobody wants to stand up to the police gangs.

Pit bulls aren't any more dangerous than other large dogs. The pit bull problem is a cultural, human one.
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I'd have no sympathy for anything that happens to a cop after killing someone's pet

Absolutely disgusting
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Trigg3rH4ppy posted...

Honestly if that happened to me I'd pay a lot of money to see to it that proper justice was served. I would hire private investigators to follow their wife and kids, then proceed to use every little secret I find to ruin their family's lives 100% legally. I'm talking affairs, get their kids kicked out of school/college, find out if their sons have ever slept with a drunk girl and use that to get their name in the newspaper with rape allegations, I'm talking some real evil Marty Byrde shit. I wouldn't actually do anything to the cops themselves, I'd want them to know that all their family's suffering was due to their cruelty. Fucking murdering pieces of shit giving the good cops a bad name.

You wouldn't do any of that when you find out how much a PI costs.

DeadorDead8 posted...

You wouldn't do any of that when you find out how much a PI costs.

also it's fucked up he wants to punish the kids for what the parent did. ruining a kid's life over something they had no part of is evil. The sins of the father bullshit is one of the things i absolutely hate

Time to get kevlar for the pups

02fran posted...

Time to get kevlar for the pups

That would be absolutely hilarious.

Dog standing there, barking, not moving.

Cop shoots at dog.

Kevlar deflects shot.

Dog now sees cop as a threat and mauls him to death.

Justified.

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jumi posted...

That would be absolutely hilarious.

Dog standing there, barking, not moving.

Cop shoots at dog.

Kevlar deflects shot.

Dog now sees cop as a threat and mauls him to death.

Justified.

Bullet proof vests (most of them anyway) are useless after being shot once.

If the cop just shot again the dog is fucked
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*Cop shoots harmless, sleeping puppy*

CE: wtf thats evil

UR: holy shit you guys think mosquito lives are more important than human lives??? Fuck this stupid internet mentality.

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Strawman fallacy.

If you have to make random shit up because you have no argument or point whatsoever you've already lost and need to rethink your mindset.
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Tyranthraxus posted...

Right now a Cop can walk into a house, shoot at a poodle, miss, kill a 4yo girl, and then charge the father with murder via felony murder laws because he had a bag of pot in the house.

Has that actually happened?

fuck i hate dirty fucking pigs

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UnfairRepresent posted...

Strawman fallacy.

If you have to make random shit up because you have no argument or point whatsoever you've already lost and need to rethink your mindset.

Not strawman. Just an exaggeration of your argument that anyone who doesnt want the police shooting completely harmless dogs with no repercussion thinks dog lives matter more than human lives.

Are there times when a dog is a threat to a cop? Yes, but that shouldnt give them carte blanche to murder any dog that barks or moves.

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Shablagoo posted...

Not strawman. Just an exaggeration of your argument that anyone who doesnt want the police shooting completely harmless dogs with no repercussion thinks dog lives matter more than human lives.

"Not a strawman. just a strawman!"

uhuh

Shablagoo posted...

Are there times when a dog is a threat to a cop? Yes, but that shouldnt give them carte blanche to murder any dog that barks or moves.

Nobody is doing that.

The law is specifically over police entering a building and dogs running towards them. In your own words the law is considering that a situation where the dog is a threat to the cops.

You're saying it should be illegal for the cops to react to the dogs running towards them until it's too late because the dogs life takes precedent.

The counter point is the cops can react instantly based on their judgement because human life takes precedent.

And as a matter of law the latter has to win out. That's why it did.

The fact you have pull out weird ass strawmen about mosquitoes and murdering dogs without repucussion demonstrates that your stance has nothing behind it other than emotion due to loving dogs. You have no point here and you know it.

Which while I can understand because I love dogs too, it's not rational as a matter of law to put them above human lives.
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UnfairRepresent posted...

Nobody is doing that.

A police officer can shoot a dog if it barks or moves when the officer enters a home, under a new federal court ruling issued this month.

https://kdvr.com/news/federal-court-rules-police-can-shoot-dog-if-it-moves-or-barks-when-they-enter-a-home/


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What a surprise, you had no point again.
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Daily reminder not to argue with Unfair unless you're a masochist

If you shoot my dog for moving, I'll kill you for hurting my family. :) Fair is fair.

treewojima posted...

Daily reminder not to argue with Unfair unless you're a masochist

That kind of doesn't work (well it doesn't work at the best of times it's a lazy evasion) when the supreme court just ruled on it.

And the only argument presented against the Supreme Court is "But my feelings."

It's not like a discussion over who is the best ninja turtle. The US has settled a matter of law and people are opposing it but unable to argue why they oppose it. You can't pin the blame on me over that for pointing out the obvious reason why the law was settled the way it was. Something it's opposition flat out can't even challenge.

Omasitor Hain posted...

If you shoot my dog for moving, I'll kill you for hurting my family. :) Fair is fair.

Or instead of threatening to murder people, why not put your dog in a crate if the police knock on the door so it can't lunge at them?

That seems more sensible and not utterly insane to me.
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UnfairRepresent posted...

Or instead of threatening to murder people, why not put your dog in a crate if the police knock on the door so it can't lunge at them?

That seems more sensible and not utterly insane to me.

Tell that to the dude who was surprised by a police raid and shot 5 seconds after the first knock on his door.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/03/18/us/forced-entry-warrant-drug-raid.html

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UnfairRepresent posted...

Or instead of threatening to murder people, why not put your dog in a crate if the police knock on the door so it can't lunge at them?

That seems more sensible and not utterly insane to me.

Or an asshole could refrain from shooting a dog that has no idea what's going on.

P.S, no one should need to have a crate at the ready in case a trigger happy bitch kicks their door down.

lol, shut the fuck up

Omasitor Hain posted...

Or an asshole could refrain from shooting a dog that has no idea what's going on.

And here's the problem

Terrible dog owners who refuse to care for their pets and knowingly put them in danger.

The cops don't know you, they don't know your dog, they don't know that the dog they have eyes on is the only one and not just the vanguard of an oncoming pack. All they know is they walked into a building and there's a threat running towards them which they have less than a second to respond to.

The law can;t say "Wait until it's ripped out your throat, then respond." the law has to say "The officers are allowed to respond to the threat as their judgement sees fit"

I can see your point if they kicked the door down without warning. But if they knocked, put your dog in a crate. Otherwise you're just being a bad owner and endangering your dog and the police.
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So, It's on me to have a crate at the ready if a cop kicks down my door by mistake. Eat shit and fuck you. :)

UnfairRepresent posted...

I can see your point if they kicked the door down without warning.

Omasitor Hain posted...

So, It's on me to have a crate at the ready if a cop kicks down my door by mistake.

You're as bad at reading as you are caring for a dog apparently....
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UnfairRepresent posted...

You're as bad at reading as you are caring for a dog apparently....

I hope you don't have any family that is unable to know what's going on if someone kicks your door down, champ.

fuck pigs and sorry UR but pig sympathizers are almost just as bad. fuck off

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SSJCAT posted...

fuck pigs and sorry UR but pig sympathizers are almost just as bad. fuck off

Again, no actual point or retort raised here. Just emotional wailing.

It's a good rule for life that if your only argument is ignore all dicussion, have no argument, have no actual thoughts or reasoning or logic and just insults and anger that your position needs rethinking.

Without insults or emotion answer the question of: How is the Federal Court ruling wrong in this instance and how would you change it?

How can a matter of law be that a dog has to be ripping open a cop's throat before they are allowed to defend themselves?

How do you get around the issue that is going to crop up of a cop enters a building and dog(s) lunge towards them?

Your opinion towards cops and love of dogs is irrelevant. I love dogs too, probably more than you, definately more than the users who can't care for them properly. But I don't see how the law here can't be as the supreme court made it, you can't say cops aren't allowed to defend themselves from potential threats until it's too late. That will just translate to injured and dead cops. And good cops losing their jobs because they didn't allow a drug dealers rapid pack of pitbulls to rip their balls off.

As a matter of law the police have to be able to defend themselves in this context.
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I actually meant to say rabid but rapid strangely works too O_o
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Dogs fucking bark UR, Jesus Christ. Its like saying a cop should be able to shoot a person for farting.

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Shablagoo posted...

Dogs fucking bark UR, Jesus Christ. Its like saying a cop should be able to shoot a person for farting.

Again, no actual point or retort raised here. Just emotional wailing.

It's a good rule for life that if your only argument is ignore all dicussion, have no argument, have no actual thoughts or reasoning or logic and just insults and anger that your position needs rethinking.

Without insults or emotion answer the question of: How is the Federal Court ruling wrong in this instance and how would you change it?

How can a matter of law be that a dog has to be ripping open a cop's throat before they are allowed to defend themselves?

How do you get around the issue that is going to crop up of a cop enters a building and dog(s) lunge towards them?

Your opinion towards cops and love of dogs is irrelevant. I love dogs too, probably more than you, definately more than the users who can't care for them properly. But I don't see how the law here can't be as the supreme court made it, you can't say cops aren't allowed to defend themselves from potential threats until it's too late. That will just translate to injured and dead cops. And good cops losing their jobs because they didn't allow a drug dealers rapid pack of pitbulls to rip their balls off.

As a matter of law the police have to be able to defend themselves in this context.

Don't make me repeat myself.

You're not actually addressing the thing you're claiming to be upset about. Which means either you don't understand it or you do understand it but are scared to address it.

Answer those questions or admit you can't and have no actual gripe with the law because you know the supreme court is correct.
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You nor the Supreme Court are even arguing from a stable premise.

This statement

Judge Eric Clay stated a police officers use of deadly force against a dog while executing a search warrant to search a home for illegal drug activity is reasonable under the Fourth Amendment when the dog poses an imminent threat to the officers safety.

and this action

Klein testified that after he shot and killed the first dog, he noticed the second dog standing about halfway across the basement. The second dog was not moving towards the officers when they discovered her in the basement, but rather she was just standing there barking, the lawsuit continues.

Klein fired two rounds at the second dog.

are incongruous.

UnfairRepresent posted...

How can a matter of law be that a dog has to be ripping open a cop's throat before they are allowed to defend themselves?

Stop asking this completely stupid, leading, strawman of a question.

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darkmaian23 posted...

Has that actually happened?

Not sure about the father being charged, but the first part of that is true

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not gonna lie, as a dog owner, this scares the hell out of me.

I have a dog who is very well trained, not aggressive in the least, but is very friendly, a "people" dog, and likes to bark. Someone knocks on the door, she'll run up to the door and bark, a lot. She won't jump, scratch, certainly not bite, but will get a bit up in your business until you pet her, at which point she becomes the visitor's best friend until they leave.

So, basically, if a cop ever comes to my house for any reason, she's as good as dead. Even if she's in her crate, she'll keep barking, which, historically, is more than enough reason for the boys in blue to cap a dog.

Hell, when I was taking her for a walk one day, I saw a pair of cops investigating something near the end of the street (live in a cul-de-sac, so going that way was basically an inevitability. When they inevitably stopped me to ask me some questions (ironically about a call they received about a pit bull one of the neighbors had), I took her down to super-short-leash and deliberately positioned myself between her and the cops, praying to god the whole time that she wouldn't want to be friends with them.

I think she knew something was up, or at least that I was worried, because she basically hid quietly behind my legs the whole time, which is pretty uncharacteristic for her.

Maybe I'm just paranoid. Don't care.

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