Andrea Rosebrock 
It’s bad enough when cops shoot dogs at large that are running in neighborhoods but when cops go on someone’s property, in their yard or even in their home and shoot their dogs, that is really going overboard if you ask me. Dogs are territorial and protective animals so it’s completely natural for them to bark to an intruder. They have no conception of a difference between a stranger or a uniformed officer of the law, all they know is that someone is on their property, in their yard, in their home and they want to let their people know. There have been two case just this week at opposite ends of the county, on in Memphis, TN and the other in the Las Vegas, NV area where cops investigating prowler reports shot dogs on their own property.
One incident happened on October 22 in High Point Terrace, a residential Memphis neighborhood. Officers were responding to reports of a prowler/burglary in the neighborhood and they entered Anna Bolton’s yard. Her two dogs, both Lab mixes, Bing, 3 and sister Violet, were in the yard at the time. Officers say that the dogs came at them aggressively and they had no choice but to shoot at the dogs to protect themselves.
“My dogs would run toward them barking, but any dog in their territory would do that,” Bolton said adding that her dogs have never bitten anyone.
She was never notified that her dogs were shot and only found out when she got home to find a shot and bleeding Bing and Violet missing. Bolton rushed Bing to the vet where she was treated for a bullet to the leg and put on antibiotics and pain killers.
“Fortunately the bullet passed through the muscle without hitting the bone, ” said Dr. Conley. “If it hit the bone, it would’ve shattered the bone, and that would’ve been a much more serious injury.”
At the time Bolton worried that she’d never see Violet again even though she plastered the area with missing dog fliers. She even had to deal with someone trying to extort money over her missing dog. That culprit, 25 year old Lashira McClain, was caught, arrested and charged with extortion.
Luckily just a couple days after the incident Violet was found, scared and shaking under a neighbor’s deck a few houses away. After she was coaxed out, aside from a limp, she appeared to be okay and is home with her family.
Although Bolton believes that MPD handled the situation incorrectly in entering her property and shooting at her dogs, she highly praised the three MPD officers who went out of their way to help her find her missing violet.
“If the post man and post woman can deal with animals on a daily basis and deal with them correctly and know how to do it, then the MPD ought to,” said Bolton.
News coverage from the initial incident – Cops Shoot Dogs; One Injured, One Missing
Missing Dog Found
The other incident happened in the same time frame across the country in Las Vegas, NV. Cops responding to a prowler call actually entered the home of Henry Rodriguez, a teen, who was just listening to some music with friends at the time. His dog, Hazel, a pitbull, did what any dog would do when someone they don’t know enters their home, she barked at them.
“I’m in my house just listening to music, and these cops are going to go inside my house without letting me know and kill my dog for no reason,” said owner Henry Rodriguez.
“All the dog did was just saw them and started barking. They just shot her. She didn’t get near the cops,” added Rodriguez.
Of course the cops claim that the dog was acting aggressively and came at them so they shot her in the face. She was put down a few hours later due to the extent of her injuries.
Y’know, I think it’s great that cops respond to calls of prowlers, suspicious person, burglars, etc but to enter a person’s property or home and to just shoot their dogs is uncalled for! Any dog is going to be wary or defensive if a stranger is in their territory.
And of course both police department are defending the officers’ actions and saying they’ll investigate but in the end it will just be officers protecting themselves from aggressive dogs although the dogs had no history of aggressiveness in the past nor were they doing anything most any dog would do under normal circumstances, protecting their home and territory.
Although these are just two instances, these are two instances that happened just last week. This is not something unusual, it happens again and again, dogs being shot on their own property, in their own homes by overzealous, trigger-happy cops.
In general I have great respect for law enforcement officers. Many of them put their lives on the line every day and many so “protect and serve” and yes, dogs can be dangerous and vicious but there has to be a line drawn somewhere when s comes to cops putting their guns on dogs. Dogs bark, dogs advance toward people sometimes just to check things out, sometimes looking for attention or playtime, sometimes to protect their homes as so many are trained to do. There is no call for the first reaction to be to pull a gun and shoot.
There has got to be another answer and police departments had better come up with it quick because people are getting sick of having to grieve over beloved family pets being killed or injured because cops are scared of every dog they see today! And except for a few random cases, pet owners seem to have little to no recourse because the police departments police themselves and how often are they actually going to say they screwed up?
In my opinion, they shoot the dogs because they can. They are rarely if ever prosecuted for it and at worst, get a few days at home if it is found they “used excessive force”.
I agree with Maggiejwl, it’s a terrible situation. If you want some history on it here’s a link, it’s enough to curl your hair.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-07-19/dogs-in-a-deadly-crossfire/full/
Excellent article Vida, thanks for sharing that. Another example of what I’m talking about and I’ve covered several of the examples he used here as well previously. Things need to change and change ASAP! Police departments need to stop refusing to take responsibility for screwing up and using innocent family pets as target practice!
D.
One officer should have stayed on the other side of the fence while the second officer went through the front. Clearly the robber, if there even was one, would have probably not exited through the backyard where the dogs were and if he did, the first officer could have nabbed him or shot him in the leg instead of shooting the dog. Or they could have surrounded house and waited. There was no reason to shoot the dogs that are part of a family and doing what we want them to do. PROTECT. Now if that was a police dog they had shot, he would be on trial for attempted murder in some states.Either way you look at it, it was wrong and I don’t see how they were in fear, clearly the dogs were fenced and the cops should have never entered for thinking there may or may not be a burglar c’mon I can understand a more serious crime but I as a pet owner would much rather have my belongings ripped off then my dogs shot. Most criminals avoid the homes with dogs anyway, don’t they??Clearly this is just another case of SHOW BOATING because you ware a badge. Very cruel and sad society and on top of that, we pay their salaries. I surely would have let my dogs do their job on a robber rather then call the police.
Too true, we had a break in and didn’t call the police, mostly due to fear they might take a whim to kill our dogs.
I’ve spoken to people who’ve had that happen so…it’s a sin and a shame as my grandma used to say.
i am so sick of hearing this!!!!!!!!!! i have been around law enforcement for years(My ex my best friend and many other good friends in that circle)…and this type of thing has never happened!! even my friends that are cops(k9cops for that matter) have and would never do this…they arent cowards….isnt it obvious if there are dogs in a yard hello ..idiots..there most likely isnt a prowler in that yard!!!! so no need to shoot the dogs..its a shame dogs cant be in their own yard or home(responsible pet owners keeping their dogs where they are supposed to be and not running at large) and be safe…makes me sick!!..they are just rigger happy and cowards..and police department or rather officers responsible should have to pay all vet bills!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! out of their own pockets for repremand!! the least they could do…far as the dog being shot and killed in its own home.that is just plain BS!!! no excuse for that one..and of course they are going to say dogs were agressive to cover their ass..again COWARDS!!
This is a out and out unexceptable occurance. There is no reason to shoot a dog that is doing its job and protecting its home from strangers. The PD could cary the same thing that the postal carriers carry and that would avoid this terrible heartbreaking stuff from happening.When this kind of stuff happens it just spells out trigger happy to me and that clearly is something all should be concerned and worried about and as Tally Paul pointed out that no robber is going to go out a door where they know there are dogs. This needs to be dealt with by all PD’s and their directive changed in reguards to dogs. In this day and age the callusness that is running rampant is outrageous. This is so sad, RIP sweet Hazel, what a waste and shame. I’m sorry for your loss Mr Rodriguez.
I am glad that Anna Bolton’s 2 dogs, Bing and Violet survived although the poor things will be forever traumatized from this and probably react everytime they see a uniform,but who could blame them.
What’s the matter? The cops have never heard OF PEPPER SPRAY or their beloved taser.
Trigger happy, ill-prepared and sadly lacking in education where humane handling of animals are concerned.
A report reached me recently about police in a small Missouri town who shot and killed a neighbor’s 19-year old deaf cat because they didn’t know the “protocol” to handle a “wild” cat. The “wild” cat was someone’s beloved family cat who accidently escaped his home, was mistakenly identified as a sick, vicious stray who had acted aggressively to a child. Cops showed up, took three of ‘em to put the cat in a box. Took the cat to a field and shot him dead and then dumped the cat’s body in a garbage can. The distraugh owners never imagined in their wildest dreams their beloved old cat would end up dying in such a shocking and cruel manner.
The acting police chief sent a written apology. Everything is fine now. (gulp!, gasp! YOU HAVE TO BE KIDDING!!!)
If it would have happened to me, I’d hock every thing I had of value, hire the best damn criminal attorney on the planet, and sue the entire town, police officers and STUPID NEIGHBOR who complained and bankrupt everyone. I hope the whole damn lot of them never, ever have a moment’s peace and good life again! STUPID, STUPID, STUPID PEOPLE!!
Right on Susan! I think I would do the same thing. Any official who does this, is not someone I want protecting me. They do this becasue they can, and no one does anything, particularly when they fall back on their usaul and weak water defense of ..”the animal was acting agressively..” or “I was concerned for my own safety”…somewhere along the line those officials who do things like this, or condone such acts, have forgotten the “to protect and serve” part of their oath, if in fact they ever believed in it.
Years ago, in my home town, the car in front of me hit a beautiful white cat and then drove on. Another driver and I stopped as it was obvious that cat was till alive but badly injured. While we were getting a blanket and box from concerned neighbors, a police woman showed up. Her first act was to order the other driver and I to move our cars out of the road. We had placed them their, with flashing emergency lights running, to keep other cars, from hitting the cat. When we tried to tell her that the cars were protecting the cat, and their was little traffice (it was after midnight) she unholstered her weapon, put her hand on the butt of it and told us if we did not comply she would arrest us. She then “grabbed” the box one of us had, walked over to the cat, “dropped kicked” it into the box and kicked the box with the cat in it across the ground to her car. When we protested, she again threatened to arrest us and said, “it’s dying anyway.” No one from the city ever even responded to my letter of complaint. That’s why those who have no compassion for animals and are in law enforcement feel they can do these things.
Peggy, I don’t know who that so called officer was but if I had been her cammanding officer she would have been kicked off the force. That one had no excuse.The cat was dying, what did she have a vets license in her hip pocket, next to her gun. Of all the unmittegated gall, that one had more than her share. It is the lack of compassion that is causing most all these animals, a lot more than it should. What a crock and for the PD not to even give you the courtecy and concideration of a response makes me wonder about the rest of them to. God help us all, for when we are dealing with such incensitivity, we are dealing with something very very wrong.
When I think about what these officers did to all these dogs, I get very mad. I really believe that all law officers of the police departments and firefighters, whether they are in the office or out on the streets, they all need to take some courses in animal behavior. They are using their badges and their use of power because they do not know how to handle these types of situations. They cannot tell the difference between alerting barking, and agressive barking; nor can they tell the difference between an agressive stance or a scared, timid stance.
I know for a fact that a dog will bark if someone they do not know has entered their territory. Our neighbor’s dog alerts us if someone is in the yard, if my boys are inside resting or relaxing. Our four legged family members know who is welcome and who isn’t.
I agree with every one of you! This is beyond cruel and sick. Your story Susan, saddened me deeply!!! That would rip me to shreads!!! Oh! And you better believe, I would do the same and sue every single one them for every thing they have in life! Make them live out their miserable, cruel life’s with NOTHING!!! As far as those cops go….I would have done the the very same thing!!! They would pay with their billfolds as well as never have another moment’s peace in their life’s. I would constantly (and NEVER stop) reminding the media, the Internet, everyone, of their complete and cruel stupidity. All the time, every day, for as long as my beloved pet would have been with me, and possibly longer….every birthday that my sweety, could not have and was unable to share with me because of these idiotic, trigger happy, uneducated (AND WE PAY THEIR SALARIES???), fool’s that don’t know the simplicity of “Pepper Spray”!!!! Oh yea emg….AND what about their “beloved tazers”? They sure know how to use those when it fits their needs! NO! They have to use DEADLY bullets, instead. DAMN IT! You bet I’m pissed! If I were Mr. Rodriguez, I would not hesitate to sue the entire dept and believe me, I am not a sue type person. But this requires heavy and immidiate action! They broke in and trespassed on his property….poor Hazel. Just doing her job. I am so sorry you had to loose your sweet, beautiful baby this way.
Ms. Bolton, I can only say I am so glad Bing and Violet survived, although probably traumatized the rest of their life’s. I would still look into some kind of recourse. The only reason they helped so hard to find Violet,was their own damn guilt feelings!!! Makes me sick!
A meth head tweaking so bad it takes five cops to bring him down can sue for the bruises. A dog can’t sue if he gets shot.
I liked Bolton’s comment that postal workers deal with dogs on a daily basis. I think that hits the heart of the problem.
Other public workers deal with unknown dogs several times a day. Animal control officers handle vicious dogs – not barking or approaching dogs, but truly vicious animals – several times a day with control sticks, nets, ropes and dog repellent sprays. The Animal Control officers that do carry guns pull their sticks and spray first.
Police pepper sprays, tasers, repellents, even batons are all a better first response.
In that second when an officer doesn’t know if the dog is going to attack, or if there is an armed burglar coming up behind the dog to shoot after the dog mauls – well, I can understand an officer taking protective steps. But they can just as easily shoot over the dog or in the ground in front of it. If the dog is truly an aggressive animal and keeps coming, then the officer may have no choice but to shoot the dog. Though again, Animal Control officers do this all day with nothing but a stick and a rope.
But a dog that is just acting like a dog – approaching, barking, etc – will usually flinch away from the noise and smell of a gunshot. {unless it’s a hunting dog, in which case they may respond to the warning shot by looking for a downed bird!}
I know that sometimes an officer has a second or less to determine the danger level of a situation, but most of the cases described here sound like there were several seconds in which an officer could have pulled spray, taser, baton, or even fired a warning shot. To shoot to maim or kill right off the bat – are there really that many situations that justify that?
Is there anyone else on this blog who knows a police officer? We have a couple of former police officers here at work. One of our Animal Cruelty investigators is a former cop. I’m going to ask them what their training was regarding this type of situation. I’m curious to see what other police officers have to say about this type of thing. I’m betting a lot of them would handle this type of situation differently. I’ll ask around and get back to you.
If you know officers, please ask them as well. Let’s see what they think. Let’s see what kind of training they are given, if any, to handle unknown pets in potentially threatening situations. If they are trained to shoot first – that needs to be addressed.
I just had another thought. There is one huge difference between postal workers, animal control officers, and police officers. COPS DEAL WITH DEATH.
A postal worker doesn’t usually have to worry if a meth head will kill him while he is spraying a barking dog with repellent. Animal control officers deal with animals of the four legged variety who might bite, not the two legged variety who might shoot.
I would be curious to find out if there had been other calls of possible criminal activity in the teens’ neighborhood, before the call to his house. Here’s this kid just sitting with friends, but the cops don’t know that when they burst in. Did they think they were going into a a meth or crack or gang house? If they had been dealing with that kind of problem in the neighborhood recently, they might have thought this was another potentially deadly situation.
Something similar happened on my block. I live in a nice neighborhood but a couple of houses down, one of the kids was selling drugs. For a couple of months after the cops raided the place, every time anyone else made a call, the cops came on tense with lots of back up. They didn’t know if the drugs had been moved to another house on the block. I called an ambulance after I sliced myself trying to open a box, and cops showed up with it! They were making sure I hadn’t been stabbed by a drug dealer! After a while, things settled back down.
Of course, they didn’t shoot my dogs. But one of them was cranky that I wouldn’t let them in until I put the dogs in the bedroom.
And the poor woman who’s dog was shot and left in the yard – had the cops just dealt with a crook who set his/her abused fighting dog to attack and maul the cops while the crook got away? Had local postmen/women complained about difficult or aggressive dogs in the neighborhood, and the cops didn’t know which dogs had the complaints and which ones didn’t? So they go in thinking “there are aggressive dogs in one of these yards” and then the poor dogs bark and the cops shoot.
They still should have left a note, phoned a message, and taken the dog to the vet.
These would be the kind of situations where I could see a police officer shooting the dog because a stone cold killer was using the dog to maul and slow down the cops while the killer – or gangbanger or drug dealer or wife beater or whatever – anyway, a cop shoots the dog because the POS has trained the dog to attack and maul. So the cop has to shoot. And the dog pays the price. And the POS gets probation.
Neither of these stories read that way to me. But I’m not a cop. I’m an animal welfare worker and I’m working very hard to figure out a reason why a cop would shoot a dog. I have great respect for cops and I’ve only met a couple who were assholes. So I am working hard to figure out a reason why a cop would shoot a dog. Working….working…working…not getting anywhere…
I would be devestated and furious if this happened to my dog. Of course, my dog is an Italian Greyhound, good luck convincing anyone that dog is a threat to anything or anybody!
But the more I think about it, the more I wonder just what the cops saw when they came on the scene. Had they been in situations where they didn’t pull a gun and got badly mauled? Where they trained to shoot first? Or were they really just trigger happy jerks?
And of course, there is that lovely policewoman who kicked the box with the injured cat. That was definately a class act. I’ve been thinking very hard about what she must have seen. Hmm. Two cars blocking the road. Could be a road hazzard, someone might not see the flashing blinkers and ram right into the back of one of those cars. So as a police officer, of course she made them move the cars off the road. It might have annoyed them that she put road safety ahead of the cat, but having them move their cars was in fact her job. Now, about kicking the box with the injured cat…hmmm…thinking, thinking, thinking really really hard…nope, I got nothing. Can’t think of any situation or scenario to justify kicking the cat. Even if the cat was “already dying.”
Glad she don’t work in my neck of the woods.
Again, if you know police officers, please get their input. I’ve already emailed the cops I know. I’ll tell you what they say.
I might add, this behavior from the very office who tells us one of the best defenses against intruders is a barking dog!
Oh – the dog should have known to bark only at the BAD guys. Or maybe he did.
The solution to these problems is better education and training for the police. They are there to help us but need to control their impulses to pull a gun on anything they feel threatened by. Pet owners need to control their dogs, too, but there is no excuse for just shooting an animal that is not attacking a person. Dogs love their owners and would put their own life on the line to protect them. They don’t know the difference between an intruder and a police officer. It’s a very sad story. RIP sweet dogs. No one will ever hurt you again.
D I was just reading the ASPC blog and the following was in it:
3. Dog Shot By Memphis Officer—ASPCA Speaks Out!
In a tragic example of what happens when proper police protocol is not followed, two pet Labrador Retrievers were shot at last Thursday by officers from the Memphis Police Department when the canines used their dog door to see who had come into their yard. The officers entered the private property to investigate a possible burglary because the homeowner’s alarm system had been triggered. Although one dog was shot and the other ran away, the dogs’ owner, who was not home at the time, was not informed by the authorities that anything unusual had taken place, leaving her to discover quite a frightening scene when she returned home hours later.
“Police shootings of family dogs are a huge problem nationwide,” says Dr. Randall Lockwood, ASPCA Senior Vice President of Anti-Cruelty Field Services. “In general, in at least one-third to one-half of all incidents where a police officer fires a gun, the target is a dog. In almost all cases, just a sharp verbal command or a confident display of authority is enough to deter a dog attack. The easiest way for police officers to do this would be to raise their batons in a threatening way. Failing that, pepper spray may be used. Shooting is very rarely justifiable.”
The Memphis Police Department has received regular training in animal handling and dog confrontations over the last decade, but that does not seem to have stemmed the rate of anti-protocol dog shootings by its officers, which is significantly higher in Memphis, per capita, than in major cities like New York and Los Angeles. “It’s ironic—Memphis is ahead of most other police departments in the nation in that they have official use-of-force policies for encounters with animals—but the real-world effectiveness of these policies depend much on internal support and enforcement and holding people accountable,” adds Dr. Lockwood.
Last week’s shooting of the two Labs comes just one week after a similar incident in which a Boxer mix was also shot in his home by a Memphis policeman. The Memphis Police Department is investigating both incidents, and all three dogs are now back home with their families, recovering from their ordeals.
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Between the guns and the tazers, it sure does show what COWARDS these POS cops really are…if you think you have to shoot an innocent animal becasue they are barking at you and you are a cop out there protecting people, I sure as hell would not want you patroling my neighborhood….SHAME ON YOU >>>>YOU COWARDS!!!
Ok, I spoke with my friends and co-workers who were or are currently policemen/women.
They all said the same thing:
While training and protocol will vary from city to city, county to county, state to state, one thing holds true across the board. A police officer is to go into a situation with the idea of coming out of it with the least possible use of violence and the safest outcome. Always look for a resolution that involves the least amount of force that can be reasonably used to protect the public and the officer. Officers are required to consider the safety of the criminal as well.
In other words, avoid escalating the situation. De-escalation is the name of the game.
None of my officer friends considered pulling, aiming, and firing a gun as the first choice to a safe resolution of a potentially unsafe situation involving DOGS. [Meth heads tweeting, waving serious firepower, now that was another story.]
Dogs don’t carry guns. They can do horrible damage, even maul a human being to death, but they don’t come running at police with guns in their paws.
The general concensus was that these shootings were avoidable.
One of my friends did have a sad story to tell – they went into a domestic violence situation, and there was a scared yappy little mutt running around the house. At one point, the abuser went after one of the cops. The yappy scared little mutt got tangled in the cop’s legs and tripped him. The abuser jumped on the fallen cop and stabbed him. His partner got the abuser in cuffs and the stabbed cop’s injury was not serious, only needed a couple of stitches. But even in this situation, an angry, drunk, abusive bruiser of a POS yelling and slamming into things, chasing his girlfriend, kids crying in the corner, yappy little dog under foot – neither of the cops pulled a gun to shoot the dog. Hell, neither of them pulled a gun on the drunk abuser! They used batons and training.
So far, I haven’t had one comment from an officer that agrees with or defends these shootings. They all responded with contempt and disgust when told about the behavior of the officers involved in these shootings.
Oh, and the lovely lady cop who kicked the injured cat? They all agreed that, while it was in fact her duty to move the cars off the road and out of the way of traffic, there was no reason or justification to be brutal about the cat, to toss it in the box, or to kick the box to the curb. [The sargeant sarcastically pointed out that it would have been easier to put the cat in the box and the box in the car. All that tossing and dumping and kicking was a waste of energy, poor public service, and even added to the danger of the situation, as the cop was focusing her attention on the cat instead of on the traffic. When he was done being sarcastic about what a rotten job she did, he got serious and said that if she had been his officer, he would have had her up on disciplinary action.]
It used to be that bad cops could get away with beating up on minorities and nobody turned a hair. Now they get in trouble for that. So I guess they have channeled their badness into shooting the family pet.
I really don’t want these guys on the streets, with badges and guns. That’s just scary…how do you know if the cop running down the street is one of the 99% of sane cops who isn’t going to shoot your dog because it’s barking in the back yard? How do you protect your dog if one of the 1% of trigger happy pigs is the one answering a report of a possible burglary next store?
MY dog was shot today in my yard Police officers came into my yard and shot the dog leaving him to die his mouth was shattered (jaw)we where gone away from home when this happend the dog was a small Chi-Ratterer mix,the dog was scared half way under the house faceing out barking @ them +my house has fence all around ,then they untied my other dog ,not knowing what happend all i know is neighbers heard gun shots im going next day to see if hes at the c.d.pound,they didnt leave no note or nothing ,only blood trail and wounded dog I see that as cruelty to animals we hade to take him to the VETso they can put him to rest cause his whole mouth was shattered and he still got to run up to me wagging his tail to let me know what happend..the kids and i are so broken hearted he was are baby WHY is it ok for them to do this to family dogs what can one do about this its NOT RITE what can a dog size of cat do to a cop..the dog was in his yard and i have a sign that says BEWARE OF DOG for the one dog that They took of the hook I hope some one can understand what im going threw and saying