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http://www.kcbd.com/story/19585390/poli ... illing-dog

The above link is a 52 second dashcam video from Lubbock PD.

Some have criticized the officer for shooting the dog just because it was a pitbull.

It seems the officer exits the cruiser with his service weapon drawn, quickly assesses
that one of the dogs needs to die, and shoots him. Luckily no ricochet off the parking lot
surface injured the nearby lookie-loo's.

SIA

I don't know if I would call that a quick kill... that dog suffered for a few minutes. If his intent was to kill it, he should have shot it again.

Didn't seem very necessary to me...

I say give that man a raise. He came prepared to fix the problem. And fixed it.

as said above, he should have shot it again, and KILLED It, not just let is suffer there.

Teamless wrote:as said above, he should have shot it again, and KILLED It, not just let is suffer there.

I agree that an animal should not suffer, but if his second [or subsequent] shot ricocheted and injured a person we would be having a whole different discussion. He shot to stop the threat.

I have a few concerns about this incident.

1. Were both dogs pits? It kind of looked like the other dog might have also been a pit.
2. That didn't look like much of a dog fight, but I would have to defer to the officer and other witnesses. From what I could see in the video it didn't look much different than when my dogs play together in our yard. And trust me when I say that if someone interrupted my dogs playing by kicking one of them the dog that got kicked is going to go after the person attacking it.

3. My third concern is a bit different. If this officer's actions were completely necessary and justified I'm a bit surprised that anyone is concerned about the dog not dying right away and suffering. I have not seen the same concern for any two-legged animals that cause their victims pain and suffering and many, myself included, wish they could be put through the same kind of pain and suffering that they put their victims through. Why would anyone feel differently for a vicious and remorseless four-legged animal? What is the difference? I would prefer that the four legged animal would not suffer, but I would not loose any sleep if it did.

WildBill wrote: but if his second [or subsequent] shot ricocheted

If that was a concern, he shouldn't have taken the first shot, as the same risk was there.

C-dub wrote: Why would anyone feel differently for a vicious and remorseless four-legged animal?

Vicious and remorseless? He didn't really seem very vicious. You said yourself that your dogs would attack anyone that kicked them the way he did, and that dog didn't seem to be too bothered by that.

I am not a fan of pitbulls, but I think it's unfair to assume that this dog is vicious and remorseless because it is a pitbull. If it was a two-legged animal, that would be called racism.

If either of those dogs were vicious, those people wouldn't have dared stand that close to watch them fight...

The officer made up his mind what he was going to do before he got out of his car. Why didn't he just call animal control and let them decide whether the pitbull was a problem? He could easily have waited for animal control to show up and kept everyone there safe while they waited.

Just my observation

GWE Chally wrote:

C-dub wrote: Why would anyone feel differently for a vicious and remorseless four-legged animal?

Vicious and remorseless? He didn't really seem very vicious. You said yourself that your dogs would attack anyone that kicked them the way he did, and that dog didn't seem to be too bothered by that.

I am not a fan of pitbulls, but I think it's unfair to assume that this dog is vicious and remorseless because it is a pitbull. If it was a two-legged animal, that would be called racism.

If either of those dogs were vicious, those people wouldn't have dared stand that close to watch them fight...

The officer made up his mind what he was going to do before he got out of his car. Why didn't he just call animal control and let them decide whether the pitbull was a problem? He could easily have waited for animal control to show up and kept everyone there safe while they waited.

Just my observation

And I agree with all your observations except for waiting for animal control. If the dog he shot really was attacking the other dog then I'm fine with what he did. He probably saved that other dogs life. I wasn't calling this dog those things. From what could be seen on this video, I couldn't tell if the two dogs were fighting or playing. Either way, when the officer kicked the one dog it did appear to turn toward him and if he hadn't already had his gun out he probably would have gotten bit.

My question was conditional on if this dog was really viciously attacking the other dog.

I also agree that this officer had probably already made up his mind that he was going to shoot that dog. Maybe that was because it really was attacking the other dog or maybe the officer has a bias towards pits. I don't know and I wasn't there. The unfortunate part about releasing this video is that it shows the only time any person was in danger was after the officer kicked the dog. Because, like you noticed and I again agree with you, the others around didn't seem too concerned for their safety. I've seen many dog fights and tried to break them up with some success and some failures. When there is a real dog fight going on sane people do not just stand around like that and watch. Granted, the dogs' attention is mostly focused on each other, but you never know when that attention will be diverted to someone else. I've seen that happen too.

Teamless wrote:as said above, he should have shot it again, and KILLED It, not just let is suffer there.

The policeman would have lost his job if he shot the "harmless", "no longer posing a threat", "puppy" a second time.

I have had boxers and pit bulls and when they lock up they dont release as quickly as this one did. I havent seen enough but I suspect the the dogs weren't in a real fight.

1. I dont think I would have been so quick on the trigger (of course the dog may have been growling at the cop in a threatening manner).
2. The dog was only posing a threat to another dog. There was enough time to do a better job of clearing the area of all bystanders before shooting.
3. With the video running & witnesses nearby, I would not have shot the dog a second time. (In a rural area I would have.)

Lot of pitbull attacks up here in Lubbock. Several attacks on minature horses. And the owners say their dogs aren't agressive.

What is the general SOP for LEOs breaking up a dog fight, if there is one? Is tazer use out of the question? Didn't look like much of a fight to me, but I wasn't there.

From what I observe this wasn't much of a dog fight, if it even was at all. Pitbulls in a fight don't release as this one did. I was helping my dad, who was a veterinarian, while I was on strke in 1980. Pitbulls were just coming into vogue and we had at least one client a day with a dog that had been attacked. Of course we only saw the ones that survived and I can tell you the owners had to do more than kick the attacking dog to get their animals free. Many had wounds themselves. One guy had to use a pair of lineman's pliers to gouge the eye of the pitt on his little spitz. He pried the jaws open with the grip. I have personally witnessed a pitbull attack and it didn't look anything like this. This looks like my Golden Retriever and my daughters Pomeranian "locked in battle" as they play. I don't fault the officer who is obviuosly totally ignorant of dog behavior and had already decided how he was going to "handle" the incident.

ETA: I just watched the video again to confirm my observation of the situation and realized the officer kicked the surviving dog several times. That disturbs me!

It looked like the other dog tried to come to the dying dog's aid, and the officer kicked it away. My boxer/lab mix plays like that all the time with his full boxer "brother" which belongs to my son. Neither dog ever actually hurts the other, and they'll play like that for hours, chewing and slobbering on one another.

The Annoyed Man wrote:It looked like the other dog tried to come to the dying dog's aid, and the officer kicked it away. My boxer/lab mix plays like that all the time with his full boxer "brother" which belongs to my son. Neither dog ever actually hurts the other, and they'll play like that for hours, chewing and slobbering on one another.

And he kicked it more than once.