TexasCHLforum.com

Jumping Frog wrote:

atouk wrote:The penalty for shooting a police dog is pretty hefty. I think the penalty for police shooting a family pet should be the same, unless they're stopping an actual deadly force attack. Lets get back to a country that really supports Liberty and Justice for All.

Ridiculous. Waiting for an "actual deadly force attack"? Are you serious?

Sorry, but I am not waiting for a bite to gauge whether it is ""actual deadly force", "pretend deadly force", or just "actual semi-serious . . . "

Since I do not trespass, in general, if someone does not want their dog shot they can control their dog.

Here's my issue with this type of response. Define "control their dog" for us. Is a dog that standing and growling "out of control". How about a dog that's standing and baring his teeth? How about a dog that's standing and baring his teeth and barking in a menacing way? Is that dog "out of control"?

How about if he's doing it to an armed human, who is screaming at the top of his lungs, holding a weapon pointed at his master? Which of the two are "out of control"? Maybe the poor dog is wondering why the humans in charge don't get their charges "in control"...

Don't get me wrong, I don't have an answer to all of this. But I don't think the real answers are so cut and dried as some try to make it sound.

gigag04 wrote:Regarding firefighters not entering your home...

If everyone is out and the integrity of the structure is unknown, they will go defensive.

Risk a little to save a little, risk a lot to save a lot is what our fireboys have told me.

Flint, if you really think I just need to accept a beating now and again because it's part of the job, then you're out of touch with realty. Understanding and accepting risk is different than turning a blind, unprepared eye to it. It's like you write off an LEOs right to self defense because of his or her chosen profession. Wow.

I don't think anyone is suggesting that someone needs to accept a beating now and again. Nor is anyone suggesting a LEO has no right to self-defense. What some of us are suggesting is that those issues don't seem to apply here.

Police are given the privilege, right, nod of approval, whatever one chooses to call it, to enter our property unannounced and armed. They give orders that we are expected to obey without question (at the moment). Those privileges, or whatever they are called, come with a certain level of responsibility. That level doesn't appear to have been achived in this case.

In short, a law-abiding citizen should have the expectation that an officer will not enter their property and kill one of their pets when no one on site is breaking a law or doing anything wrong.

Barring that expectation, I suspect you're going to start finding citizens ready to defend themselves and their property, and (again absent that expecation) I couldn't find fault with them doing so.

flintknapper wrote:...I’m just saying….I believe (these days) officers have it drummed into their heads that THEIR safety is the only thing that matters and that a certain “warrior” spirit is the only thing that will get them home each day (sigh…….).

The job can be dangerous…no doubt, but if you are unwilling to accept that (and a few bruises and bumps along the way) then maybe Law Enforcement isn’t really the best profession for some folks.

It is undeniable…. the growing divide of the “US vs. THEM” between the public and the police. Why is that?

Thank you, this is the point I was trying to make. You did it better than I (at least, at the end there ;) )

bci21984 wrote:Not sure what my iPhone is doing with these posts. Going home at the end of the day is priority #1 for every member of law enforcement. You intend on doing your job as best you can and returning home, do you not? Why is a police officer different. The supreme court has ruled that police have no legal requirement to protect citizens. It is done out of want. Police want to protect, but they also have to protect themselves. None of us will know exactly what that officer perceived. Ive said it before, what happened is tragic. There are checks and balances to his actions and his department will find him justified or in the wrong. We simply werent in his shoes. You dont know how you would react until faced with the situation.

Sorry, I disagree.
If that is the #1 priority, then they should simply shoot in every single encounter that they view as mildly dangerous.
Yes, I intend on doing my job and return home, and I will answer why a police officer is different.

Because he chose a different job. He chose a job in which is first duty is to protect and serve. I would not not fault my neighbor for not risking his life to fight a fire at my house, but I would fault a fireman for doing so. That's the job he chose.

I've yet to see a decal on a patrol car that says "protect myself first, then protect and serve the citizens"

I also agree with much of what you say; this discussion board is not a judge or jury, we are here expressing our opinions based on what (little) we know of what happened. In this case, it's not about whether or not the policeman was "protecting" the citizen, so that supreme court ruling (as ridiculous as it was) doesn't really apply - it's about a policeman taking action against an innocent civilian who was doing absolutely nothing wrong on his own property.

In this instance, I initially thought that though it was a tragedy, it was the owner's fault since his dog wasn't on a leash (the laws in my city require that a dog be inside a building, behind a fence, or on a leash, regardless of where it's at). Then I read that city's law (it's in the thread), and it sounds as if the homeowner wasn't even doing something as minor as breaking that law.

I maintain that when an innocent man, who has done nothing illegal or even improper, that loses a pet to a shooting by a police officer, has been done wrong. In the case, listening to the audio, it sounds very much like the officer was way to quick to shoot.

bci21984 wrote:... The officer was placed into a dangerous possibly life altering/ending situation in a matter of seconds and made a decision that allowed him to go home with the same number of holes he went to work with...

I' ve seen this as a "justification" a couple of times now. Here's a counter though.

The owner of the home, the citizen who was helping pay the officer's salary, didn't even leave his property, yet was left with what he considered a family member that that did have more holes than he started the day with. And that home owner did nothing that justified his pet dying.

That's the rub. I'm sorry if this offends some of the LEOs, and trust me, I'm not anti-LEO by any means, but if the ultimate goal of an LEO is to ensure that he goes "home with the same number of holes he went to work with", then he is in the wrong line of work.

The citizen who is doing nothing wrong deserves the first consideration, the LEO is there to protect him.

puma guy wrote:... Let's say someone with a CHL is replying to an ad for the sale of an item and owner's dog comes at them.

Gotta modify that a little. How about replying to an ad from a neighbor, and going to the wrong house.

With gun drawn...