I see a lot of monday-morning quarterbacking going on in this thread. Dissection of what the officer should have been thinking, or what the dog might or might not have been likely to do, or the behavioral characteristics of large dog breeds in general...

Long story short:

Perp comes along and starts making shit.

Perp sticks his big ole' dog into a car with the windows down so that he can go and get detained.

Dog jumps out, of car, approaches officers, acts a bit confused and unsure. Officers attempt to control dog using non-lethal means. Dog then lunges at one of them while barking. (all of this happens in a matter of a few seconds.)

Officer responds according to training and instinct: neutralize obvious threat.


I'm not in favor of wantonly shooting dogs, but I also don't think that the officer(s) acted unreasonably in this situation, given the circumstances. The perp could have easily avoided this by either:

1: Don't deliberately go poking around in the middle of an active police response, antagonizing the cops and trying to get yourself detained. Stand at the sidelines and gawk just like everyone else, or

2: Secure your damn dog.

The officers walk out of their way to confront the owner well after the fact and as he's looking to get ready to leave.

at 3:00 the officer performs battery on the suspect; the dog reacts.

Therefore, it's the officer's fault, as the dog reacted to the threatening manner in which he pushed/grabbed, violently, the owner who peacefully surrendered.

Why did it take multiple shots to put the dog down? Can't police officers ever hit targets? I wouldn't have shot the dog, but if I did it would've taken 1 shot and the dog wouldn't have been able to limp across the sidewalk.
I also wouldn't have been like "I have nothing better to do than to take cell phone vids of these whitey cops doing their jobs. If i was black, i would've had my black ass outta there at the first sight of flashing lights. What kind of brother sticks around where the cops are?

One who is already suing that police department. Either he is still angry about whatever he is being sued for, or was trying to create a situation that would help his case/let him sue again. If it was the latter, he got what he was looking for, though certainly not in the way he anticipated.

I honestly have to say, if you're not being sarcastic, then my opinion of your ability to think logically and your power of observation is in serious question.

Anyone seeing the police being racial here, needs a serious reality check. Clearly such a person has never been exposed to black people with bad attitudes.

The only stereotype here is the black guy acting like a hoodrat. 50 other people standing there with cameras rolling were never bothered by any officer..explain that Scott. Clearly they're not all white either...but if the cops were so incredibly racist and hot headed why did they wait that long to harass someone? Why were they not arresting anyone else who wasn't white?

Isn't there a bigger issue at hand here. He was arrested for video taping cops...That's not illegal. And if it is, then it shouldn't be. Its my understanding that its protected under the First Amendment.

Honestly, the dog is collateral damage, but we really have to think about it...Video taping/Photographing <insert government representative/official here> should not/is not illegal.

He wasn't arrested for video taping cops. In fact I don't believe he was arrested at all.

Was he? It looked like a Terry Stop to me (brief detention without probable cause.) And that is perfectly legal and constitutional.

And it was because he was "all up in dey junk," so to speak. The people who were videotaping the police from a respectful distance were not detained or harassed.

Ding ding ding. Joe is the winner. Police can arrest/detain at will in order to keep order. I think there is a lack of understanding the word "arrest" and what it means.




Maybe if the dog had a gun, it would have been able to defend itself. That's it, I'm going to lead a crusade that dogs have rights too and that they need to carry guns.

Understood. Makes sense, but Terry Stop seems to imply "reasonable suspicion" of involvement in criminal activity. What did he do to cause "reasonable suspicion" here?

Shooter allegedly shot a Downie while he was a rookie:

Dog Killer Cop Killed Man with Down Syndrome as a Rookie - | Intellihub.com

DING DING DING. Police cannot detain you unless they suspect you of committing a crime, or you are committing a crime.

Unless you live in a blue state where they can stop you if you're black. (see NY; stop and frisk)

"Being annoying" is not a crime. Also, the inverview with the late dog owner suggests the cop arresting him advised him to "stop resisting". I guess the police were looking for an excuse to beat the shit out of the guy too.

In the end, the police will investigate themselves, find no wrong doing, lose a civil suit, the tax payer will bankroll the settlement, and this chromosome crashing dog killer will go on to kill again and the man who violated this dude's civil rights will get off scott-free.

Black dude is clearly vying for attention, the entire time he was prancing around as if to say "look at me". He had a dog which appeared to have the potential of threat, which he was intentionally parading on the corner as a visible potential threat that every officer on the scene had to recognize and adjust his/her potential actions to compensate for. The noise of his stereo system would have made it more difficult for the police to communicate/conduct/hear during what was already an obviously tense situation, and the fact that black dude left his loud stereo on as he got out of the car is another obvious indicator that he is attempting to get a reaction out of the officers. By holding his camera phone out at arms length with a straight elbow in an uncomfortable position, black dude was intentionally displaying that he was recording the scene in another overt attempt to gain the attention of the already occupied law-enforcement officers. (You try to record something with your camera phone in front of you with an unbent elbow, and see how unnatural and eventually painful it feels). The police officers showed professionalism and restraint initially in black dudes actions, and I suspect that they asked black dude to turn his distracting car stereo down several times before approaching him - didn't know, couldn't hear. Because black dude was creating an obvious and overt distraction, there was potential that he could be an accomplice, creating a distraction so that a suspect might attempt an escape/hide/throw a gun out a window/etc., and therefore we can consider him a suspect in whatever tense situation is happening on the other side of the police cars. Cuffing him and placing him in a police car is then an appropriate action for the safety of all involved until the situation at hand can be resolved.

With regards to the dog, the police appropriately treated the dog as if it were a person. The police let the dog remain in the car, as the dog would not have knowingly been an accomplice to the crime. After the suspect was handcuffed, the dog, which had been shouting profanities at the officers, raced over to help out his friend. The police responded by initially attempting to secure the dog away from the owner, but during the attempt to secure the dog, the dog lunged at the police officer with a melee weapon, which posed a direct and immediate threat to the safety of the officer. Using an appropriate response, the police officer fired at the attacker until the threat was neutralized. It would have been illegal for the police to follow the attacker and continue to fire at the attacker after they reasonably felt the direct and immediate threat to their lives had been neutralized. If the police had asked this man repeatedly to stop doing something which had a direct impact on the safety of the mission (turn down your fucking stereo) and he refused, then they are justified in arresting him. Regardless of justification for arrest, I disagree that the officer should have shot the dog, but the action of shooting the dog is completely justified.

except almost everything you've stated, and I could go through them 1-by-1 if you want, is either perfectly legal or a subjective claim.

In Terry v. Ohio (392 U.S. 1 (1968)) the Court very deliberately established that "reasonable suspicion" is a much looser burden than "probable cause," and many subsequent rulings have upheld this standard.

It also allowed for suspicion not only that a crime has been committed or is being committed, but also that a crime might be committed in the near future.

At the point where the perp actively "crosses the line" and intrudes on what is obviously an active police investigation, he has more than satisfied the criteria for suspicious behavior and is subject to a brief detainment and a cursory search of his person.

ITT: Braineack trolls reasonable, rational racist people.
Probably about to call me a raciest.

OR

ITT: Racists attack Braineack and shoot dog with reasonable, rational thinking racism.

I couldn't decide which to go with but somebody should defiantly change the title of this thread to one of the two.

Either way Brain is a trololol and should barrow one of jasons cool tinfoil hats.

I'd have shot the dog too, then the owner. Because racist gun owner.

/dog