TexasCHLforum.com

puma guy wrote:he thought it was a pit bull.............. canine profiling!
Unfortunately the officer, the PD and the city are all protected from any suit unless negligence is proven. In Texas Governments CAN destroy and damage your property with impunity. Unless a vehicle is involved or there is negligence or defective equipment you are toast for any recovery for damages.

And this is a conservative value exactly how? I understand things like eminent domain.......don't like it, but I understand it.......but eminent domain at least requires compensation for the loss of property. But you're saying that it's true that a police agency can kick down your door, shoot your dog, and burn your house down—all in absolute error—and they don't have to compensate you for the damage to property? That's like 25 kinds of wrong, and it's not something that should be allowed to stand, particularly by a governor who made his bones bragging about smaller government and citizen rights.

And, as others have pointed out, negligence is definitely at play here. Wrong address? Can't tell a collie from a pit bull? Negligence and ignorance.

gigag04 wrote:Cant speak to this situation as I wasn't there.

However, I'll offer an open invite for anyone to come and ride for a night. We can go see some nice pets people keep over in the hood.

Look at the video. This wasn't "the hood."

steveincowtown wrote:

The Annoyed Man wrote:
This could all be avoided with some variation on a very simple procedure: when the officer is arriving, or about to arrive on scene, he radios the dispatcher, asking dispatch to phone the home to notify the resident that he is out front, and to ask the resident (who after all is the one who called the cops) to please go to their front window and verify that they see the officer. When they confirm to dispatch that they see the officer, the dispatcher instructs the homeowner to get any dogs he owns under control. Only then does the officer exit his vehicle and approach the house. The right of the homeowner to be safe and secure in his person and property is then observed, as is the right of the officer in question to have a safer work environment.

I agree TAM, but step one is that the officer has to show up at the correct address.

This is why the officer "confirms" whether or not he is at the right address by having dispatch phone the homeowner at the correct address. If the homeowner goes to the front window and reports to dispatch there there is no police officer out front, then dispatch can tell the officer to double check his location.

Here's another procedure that would work: have the officer call up the correct address on Google Maps from within his squad car and then zoom in on the address in question. Google maps, particularly the "street view," will tell the officer if he's at the right address. Sure it adds time to the equation, but isn't the extra couple of minutes more than offset by not killing the dog at the wrong home?

The point is that this is a VERY simple problem to solve. Step one: Police ADMIT there is a problem. Set two: implement a simple procedure to avoid it going forward. If a police department is not willing to make that effort, then maybe their municipality ought to cut back their funding until they get the message. After all, who works for whom?

george wrote:I do not wish to defend the officer in this case.

However, in conversation with some SWAT, FBI types, they claim that most druggies nowadays have agressive dogs for warning or protection. Consequently, the norm on a raid seems to be to open the door, and shoot the dog(s).

Maybe that partially explains the "shoot first" attitude.

This was not a SWAT mission. This was a single cop, responding to a call, and knocking on a front door. The homeowners were in their driveway at the time, and their two dogs were with them. The cop went up onto the front porch, and one of the dogs ran up to the porch to greet him.

If it is standard police policy to shoot the dogs whenever they send a lone officer to respond to a call, then you can bet that people will stop calling police and will start handling whatever needs to be handled themselves. This may not be the best response—for the homeowners, the police, or for the person whose behavior caused the call in the first place. If police want to provide good service, they need to train their officers to not reflexively shoot every dog that comes to greet them. If they can't do that, then they need to find another line of work.

This could all be avoided with some variation on a very simple procedure: when the officer is arriving, or about to arrive on scene, he radios the dispatcher, asking dispatch to phone the home to notify the resident that he is out front, and to ask the resident (who after all is the one who called the cops) to please go to their front window and verify that they see the officer. When they confirm to dispatch that they see the officer, the dispatcher instructs the homeowner to get any dogs he owns under control. Only then does the officer exit his vehicle and approach the house. The right of the homeowner to be safe and secure in his person and property is then observed, as is the right of the officer in question to have a safer work environment.

Does all this cost extra money? Probably. Fine. Buy one less urban assault vehicle or surveillance drone.

george wrote:Has this become a knee-jerk reaction to dogs?

Seems so to me. Plus, what kind of idiot cop can't tell the difference between a border collie and a pit bull, since his statement was "I didn't know if it was a pitbull or not?" The two breeds aren't even remotely similar, except for having four legs and hair, nor do they have the same naturally aggressive instincts.

Forgetting for a minute that our pets are family and keeping in mind that in the eyes of the law they are "merely" chattel property......how is it that cops can go to an incorrect address and destroy someone's property with impunity? If a police officer goes to a wrong address and destroys someone's property, that person deserves some compensation and an official apology from the city in question, and an acknowledgment that the officer did a wrong thing. That may seem unfair to police, but we pay them to maintain a higher standard of behavior, and when the consequences of their mistakes can result in destroyed property, false arrest, and shot family dogs, that higher standard of behavior is entirely appropriate. If an officer cannot maintain it, they don't belong on the force. It's really that simple.

I was once fired from a job as a phlebotomist for drawing blood from a wrong patient. I walked into the room next to the correct room, and was operating on coffee and lack of sleep near the end of a 16 hour shift, and I did not properly check the patient's ID bracelet against the lab order before drawing the blood. The mistake was discovered in time, and thank God that no real harm came to the patient I drew the blood from (other than an unnecessary needle stick) or to the patient whose blood I was supposed to draw. They fired me.....and I deserved it. And now we have a cop who didn't take the time to back check that he was at the right address—just like I failed to check the patient's ID bracelet against the lab order—and that homeowner's precious dog was back-shot while giving a friendly greeting. Why is this officer still employed? Unlike with my firing, where no real harm was done and there was only the potential for harm, this guy actually shot and killed someone's pet family member....or in the eyes of the law, destroyed that homeowner's chattel property.

This may not be a big deal to some, and I realize that officers or former officers who are members of this forum may view it differently. But this really IS a big deal, and here's why: If the department acknowledges their responsibility and offers compensation for the destroyed property along with an apology without having to be dragged into court to get it that is the right thing to do. Equally, FAILURE on the part of a department or city to acknowledge their responsibility and to make it right without having to be compelled to do so is destructive to the trust between police and community which is essential to public safety. That makes a cop's job harder than it needs to be.

When police kick down enough doors at enough wrong addresses, arrest/detain enough mistaken people at wrong addresses, and shoot enough dogs at wrong addresses without apologizing and compensating residents for the property and psychological damages they inflict, then they no longer hold the moral high ground which is essential to good policing, and they become just another gang running a protection racket that citizens have to beware of......while suffering the gall of knowing that it is their taxes that keep these gangs in business. No sane person wants to live this way, and no sane police hierarchy would want their moral authority to degrade into this kind of madness.

If the Fort Worth PD is really concerned about effective policing and the maintenance of the moral high ground from which to police the rest of us, they will not reflexively try to evade their responsibilities in the matter. If they can't demonstrate good self-policing, then they can't be trusted with policing the rest of us. I don't think I'm being too harsh here because there is too much at stake when things go wrong and innocent people and their property are the victims of police bungling. I want to see police departments highly paid so that they can attract the very best and brightest people who are willing to take on this necessary work. And when a cop screws up in a situation where there is a potential for great harm (like what would have happened if the justifiably outraged homeowner had started shouting at the cop in question and ran toward him in anger), I want that cop held fully accountable, just as I was held fully accountable, even if it's "only" a dog that he shot. The dog's owners deserve no less.

Am I being unreasonable? I don't think so.