TexasCHLforum.com

EEllis wrote:

Cedar Park Dad wrote:Shooting a firearm in a residential neighborhood? Are you sure about that?

Well it kind of depends on why doesn't it? If you can show, well excuse me that is backwards, unless the state can show you didnt have a legitimate reason for firing a gun in self defence killing a dog then your location is insignificant as long as you aren't there illegally.

talltex wrote: they could carry a small cattle prod which will keep a dog off without injuring them, but they had to stop after someone saw them zap their dog and sued them for damages...they now carry pepper spray also.

EEllis wrote:

Cedar Park Dad wrote:Again,
1. why aren't the police using pepper spray/mace on dogs instead of throwing lead in populated areas?
2. why are they going to back yard in the first place? Its at best a minor warrant.

Can't answer the first but will say that is a dept policy issue and shouldn't be held against the individual officer as to the second I assume that is what this officer does. He gets a list and starts working. The more time and the longer it's on his list the more time he puts in. If no one was home I have no doubt he would of been on the road looking for the next name.

JSThane wrote:

Cedar Park Dad wrote:With respect. I think the problem is that + he shot the dog. Poor doggie.

I get ya, and I do feel bad for dog and owner, but my point was that, had he been at the right address, there wouldn't be any question.

JSThane wrote:I find myself figuring the error here happened in one of two places.

1) When the warrant was being sworn/printed, the address was entered wrong,
OR
2) The officer serving the warrant used a GPS to find the address, and failed to notice the city was wrong.

Either way, it's a departmental/court error, and they ought to pay the costs for the whole thing. I'm not going to go after the officer for shooting a dog he probably believed was attacking him; but I can fault him for being where he had no business. I say that as someone who has been chewed up a time or two (not on duty), and who has come close to having to use force on a dog in self-defense (on duty). Once that animal starts charging, be it either for play, protection, or aggression, you don't really have much time to go back and re-examine the address, etc, before it gets there; it's grab whatever tool pops into your head to use, and set about defending yourself. Add in the additional adrenaline of serving a warrant, fear of some ex-con having violent buddies over, trained attack dogs, etc, and it gets more and more understandable that the officer would shoot first, play fetch later. So I don't fault him here. BUT....

The problem isn't that he shot the dog. The problem is that he was at the wrong address in the first place, and THAT is what makes everything afterward the liability of the department and/or court that issued the warrant.