Dog shot in city park

[flintknapper]

I fully trust no dog.
Anygunanywhere

Sage advice!


A personal experience of mine (and a shocking discovery) compels me to agree that "some" dogs can act unpredictably in the blink of an eye, even if that dog has been perfectly trustworthy in the past.

Until just a couple of years ago....I had a Chocolate Lab that I raised from a pup and trained to the level of "Senior Hunter". By all accounts a well behaved and obedient animal.

We had a problem with our telephone line and the technician arrived at my home ahead of me. He attempted to go into the back yard and apparently was met by my Lab. He left a note asking to reschedule the repair to a time when I could meet with him because the dog was acting viciously.

Not believing that, I rescheduled. The man shows up and low and behold....my Lab is seriously snapping and barking on the other side of the fence. Even though I called the dog down...his behavior led to me to believe the man would not have been entirely safe even with me there. I removed the dog and took him over to my in-laws.

About a week later I was taking the dog to the vet to get his shots and when we stopped at an intersection he starts this same growling/barking as with the phone repairman. I looked over to see what he was focused on....and it turned out to be life size statue of a man.

Then it clicked! The statue was a very dark colored bronze figure, the repairman was an African American gentleman. The dog had not been around any folks of color that I know of...so he had absolutely no reason to see them as a threat...but something about this new encounter made him fearful or angry I guess.

I cannot explain why my dog got so excited over this...and cannot absolutely prove that his behavior was inappropriately triggered by dark skin color, I just know it was very out of character for him...and had I not witnessed it myself....would have doubted anyone else's account of it.

It was quite an eye opener, so the advice to not fully trust any dog is a good one to remember.

[KD5NRH]

"He shouldn't have reacted so fast" when the dog was already within arm's reach. Great thinking there.

I have found no reference to the distance in either of the posted articles. Where did you read that it was "within arm's reach"?

I don't know about arm's reach... but we do have a quote the Chief of police mentioning that the dog was very close.

From this article - http://www.empiretribune.com/articles/2 ... 889780.txt

“We know Chili was not disobeying any laws by carrying his gun in the park,” Tarleton Police Chief Justin Williams said. “The trajectory of the shot and the blood from the dog being on the sidewalk indicates he was close - real close - to Chili and his children, which he perceived as a threat.”

Also this statement from the third article:

At one point during the incident, Williams said Alexander decided not to fire at the dog because he could see people behind it. Shortly thereafter, he fired a single round when the dog was approximately three feet away from him.

[boomerang]

If an animal behaves threateningly, I won't hesitate to use whatever force necessary to protect me and the people I love.

[KD5NRH]

And...with all this being said. The point still remains that the man shot a DOG...a dog that was not on a leash and in the control of it's owner. A dog that was a threat to the well being of the mans children.

This has not been proven by any stretch of the imagination.

“One of the boys ran and the oldest boy backed up against the fence and was trying to wave Jackson off,” Reyes said. “I could tell he was terrified of dogs.”

At that point, any reasonable adult should be able to see that, regardless of the dog's intent, it could easily cause the children to place themselves in great danger.

Even failing that, any decent adult should try to help them, not just stand around and watch.

[flintknapper]

And...with all this being said. The point still remains that the man shot a DOG...a dog that was not on a leash and in the control of it's owner. A dog that was a threat to the well being of the mans children.

This has not been proven by any stretch of the imagination.

“One of the boys ran and the oldest boy backed up against the fence and was trying to wave Jackson off,” Reyes said. “I could tell he was terrified of dogs.”

At that point, any reasonable adult should be able to see that, regardless of the dog's intent, it could easily cause the children to place themselves in great danger.

Even failing that, any decent adult should try to help them, not just stand around and watch.

I'm not getting the point you are trying to make (my fault).

Can you expand on this please.

[flintknapper]

If an animal behaves threateningly, I won't hesitate to use whatever force necessary to protect me and the people I love.

We are all in agreement on this point.

[dihappy]

I googled "poodle attacks" and came up with 632000 hits. I say we shoot threatening poodles too!!

Also, I googled "goose attack" and it came back with 2,050,000 results, so it appears as though geese are more dangerous than pit pulls. Next goose that starts eyeing me down is gonna have lead chasing him!!

LOL...it just gets sillier. Most of us can fend off a crazed goose without the aid of a firearm. Like I said before, if it is a poodle, we can kick it into tomorrow. A pit bull sized animal is not to be compared with a goose or a poodle.

That depends on what you mean by "A pit bull sized animal" What "pit bull" are you using as your weight standard?

The AKC American Staffordshire Terrier is normally between 40-50lbs, the AKC Standard Poodle is between 55-65lbs :)

[dihappy]

"He shouldn't have reacted so fast" when the dog was already within arm's reach. Great thinking there.

I have found no reference to the distance in either of the posted articles. Where did you read that it was "within arm's reach"?

I am pretty handy with a pistol. Having played Longtooth's "shoot the dog" game at the range, I am confident that the dog was not behaving aggressively, because the officer hit it with one shot. A moving dog is just too difficult a target to hit.

I also find it a shame that this man has raised his children to be so terrified of dogs -- and they obviously learned it from him.

As I mentioned earlier, my wife is a groomer, and has been for over 15 years. When we were discussing this story last night, she pointed out that the only breed (group of breeds, actually) that has never bitten her, nor even tried to bite her, nor acted aggressive at all while in her shop, has been pits. Allowing, of course, for statistically significant raw numbers -- she's also never been bitten by a Dogue de Bourdeux nor Irish Wolfhound, having only had one of each as a customer. She's handled hundreds of different individual pits. The greatest threat from them has been undocked tails -- they wag so furiously that it's like getting slapped across the thigh with a sjambok.

Leaving aside the dogs most likely to successfully break skin (Shih Tzus and Pomeranians), and just looking at dogs big enough to do serious damage, then Golden Retrievers, Collies, GSDs, Malinois (a highly trained Arkansas State Police K9, at that), Australian Shepherds, Malamutes, Siberian Huskies, Samoyeds, even lovable lugs like Great Pyrenees, have all tried to do mayhem to her, me, and/or employees. And some of them weren't just mad about the nail trim, some actually wanted to rip out throats.

Once again, let me point out that we've never owned any pit nor pit mix, and have no plans to. We're not defenders of the faith, just trying to speak the truth. (Speaking of, why isn't this dog being called a boxer?)

So... from a source that is biased neither towards nor against pits, there's some impartial data for you.

KB, my fiance is also a dog groomer. Safe to say that not many "pits" come in for a "groom", however they do come in for baths and nail clips. She has also never had a problem with "pits", she has however been bitten by Chow Chows, Labs, Mix breeds, and the many, many, "toy" sized dogs out there. Her co worker was scared badly on the face by a lab.

My point? Not that "Pits" are non aggressive, but that the dogs socialization relies heavily on the owner.

Dont socialize ANY dog and/or train it properly and you can have a potential problem when it gets near any human or other animal.

[KD5NRH]

Even failing that, any decent adult should try to help them, not just stand around and watch.

I'm not getting the point you are trying to make (my fault).

Can you expand on this please.

If you see a child clearly terrified of something, regardless of how you feel about the thing that is causing the reaction, are you just going to stand around and watch the show, or try to intervene?

“One of the boys ran and the oldest boy backed up against the fence and was trying to wave Jackson off,” Reyes said. “I could tell he was terrified of dogs.”

The boy, based on *her* description of the event, was in a panicked state out of fear that *she recognised* as being caused by her dog, yet she chose to do nothing at that point. I don't know how old she is, but since she's a college student, she must have had at least 18 years to figure out that stark terror often makes people do things they otherwise wouldn't, (after all, that seems to be what she and others are accusing Chili of) so he should have seen the potential for the child to cause himself injury.

IMO, this, and the fact that she was previously dwelling on Chili's failure to identify himself as an officer, point to her not caring enough to do anything as long as she thought she would face no consequences for her inaction. After all, the only difference I can see between a peace officer and any other concerned father in this situation is that the peace officer can cite her for the violation, while anyone else would only be able to yell at her.

[KD5NRH]

KB, my fiance is also a dog groomer. Safe to say that not many "pits" come in for a "groom", however they do come in for baths and nail clips. She has also never had a problem with "pits", she has however been bitten by Chow Chows, Labs, Mix breeds, and the many, many, "toy" sized dogs out there. Her co worker was scared badly on the face by a lab.

Does she deal with a lot of junkyard dogs? Special bulk pricing for dogfighting rings? Actual working (not show) herd dogs? She's probably not dealing with the dregs of doggy society, or even the "blue collar" working dogs unless she's grooming a few police or security animals, and yet these well-cared for dogs with owners who could easily afford enough obedience training for them to qualify as command-restrained in areas that recognise such (Stephenville doesn't, but a couple of towns around here do) are still injuring people who have a lot of experience in dealing with animals.

Neither Chili nor his kids had any way of knowing whether this dog had any such training, or what its disposition normally would be. Nor did they have enough time once it was "approximately three feet away" to evaluate its behavior any further.

[KD5NRH]

I also find it a shame that this man has raised his children to be so terrified of dogs -- and they obviously learned it from him.

Really? I remember an age when I was terrified of flying. My father did a few parachute jumps in the service and my grandfather was a pilot, airplane mechanic and former paratrooper; either one would have used violence without hesitation if necessary to stop someone from making me go up in a plane. Did I learn that fear from them? (For the record, I outgrew it pretty quickly, and jumped at every opportunity to go flying with granddad afterward. Now I just have a loathing for airline security.)

I've known plenty of kids who were phobic when it came to large dogs, and their parents would have no problem beating and yelling at a dog they had been petting moments before when it started scaring their children.

[KD5NRH]

As you can see, it's not a great place to be approached, especially with the dog coming up from the water. There is a gate in that fence well out of frame to the right, but it's too far away for kids to have any chance of outrunning a dog to get to it, and if the dog made it in too, they'd be corralled with it.

As a correction to this, I checked again today, and all gates on this side of the tennis courts are locked, eliminating that option. It's hard to tell in the photo, but the slope to the water is pretty steep, and the water is fairly deep there, so trying to run that way would have been risky as well. The netting on the chainlink also makes it more difficult to climb than normal, so just climbing out of the dog's reach would take more time than they had. The sidewalk itself is wide enough for two people to comfortably pass, but they were effectively trapped in a navigable area of about six feet wide and 180-240 feet (three or four tennis court widths) long.

[KBCraig]

“One of the boys ran and the oldest boy backed up against the fence and was trying to wave Jackson off,” Reyes said. “I could tell he was terrified of dogs.”

The boy, based on *her* description of the event, was in a panicked state out of fear that *she recognised* as being caused by her dog, yet she chose to do nothing at that point.

Huge supposition on your part. It sounds like you believe she ignored the situation completely, when it was most likely one that was rapidly unfolding. Just how many minutes do you think passed between Chili yelling at her, and firing a shot? Or was it seconds instead of minutes?

By "chose to do nothing", do you mean that she started up the slope to get her dog, but didn't reach it in time? Turned her back? Opened her mouth to answer Chili's demands, only to find he already had a gun in his hand?

You don't know. Don't pretend this was just some polite rational debate, where we can analyze people's words at our leisure.

IMO, this, and the fact that she was previously dwelling on Chili's failure to identify himself as an officer, point to her not caring enough to do anything as long as she thought she would face no consequences for her inaction. After all, the only difference I can see between a peace officer and any other concerned father in this situation is that the peace officer can cite her for the violation, while anyone else would only be able to yell at her.

Whether it was an unidentified peace officer, or just a concerned father, the owner was still facing a big angry man with a gun in his hand. Being cited or yelled at would be the least of her concerns.

Given Chili's (and his children's) obvious fear of dogs based on their appearance, perhaps he should be more aware of people's prejudices and fears. For instance, many people would be frightened of a big, bald, black man yelling at them with a gun in his hand. Would you advise her to approach this unknown man in order to retrieve her dog?

[03Lightningrocks]

“One of the boys ran and the oldest boy backed up against the fence and was trying to wave Jackson off,” Reyes said. “I could tell he was terrified of dogs.”

The boy, based on *her* description of the event, was in a panicked state out of fear that *she recognised* as being caused by her dog, yet she chose to do nothing at that point.

Huge supposition on your part. It sounds like you believe she ignored the situation completely, when it was most likely one that was rapidly unfolding. Just how many minutes do you think passed between Chili yelling at her, and firing a shot? Or was it seconds instead of minutes?

By "chose to do nothing", do you mean that she started up the slope to get her dog, but didn't reach it in time? Turned her back? Opened her mouth to answer Chili's demands, only to find he already had a gun in his hand?

You don't know. Don't pretend this was just some polite rational debate, where we can analyze people's words at our leisure.

IMO, this, and the fact that she was previously dwelling on Chili's failure to identify himself as an officer, point to her not caring enough to do anything as long as she thought she would face no consequences for her inaction. After all, the only difference I can see between a peace officer and any other concerned father in this situation is that the peace officer can cite her for the violation, while anyone else would only be able to yell at her.

Whether it was an unidentified peace officer, or just a concerned father, the owner was still facing a big angry man with a gun in his hand. Being cited or yelled at would be the least of her concerns.

Given Chili's (and his children's) obvious fear of dogs based on their appearance, perhaps he should be more aware of people's prejudices and fears. For instance, many people would be frightened of a big, bald, black man yelling at them with a gun in his hand. Would you advise her to approach this unknown man in order to retrieve her dog?

She was breaking the law in the manner she was handling her dog. She and her dog got what they deserved for such ignorance and irresponsibility on her part. ramble all you want. Make silly long posts quoting what fits your agenda all you want. Nothing you say or post changes that the girl and her dog violated the law. Her actions put a mans children at risk. The man took the appropriate action. Nothing you say or post is going to make anyone who has a lick of intelligence condemn a man for protecting his kids.

[flintknapper]

If you see a child clearly terrified of something, regardless of how you feel about the thing that is causing the reaction, are you just going to stand around and watch the show, or try to intervene?

Depends on the circumstance, but normally yes.

The boy, based on *her* description of the event, was in a panicked state out of fear that *she recognised* as being caused by her dog, yet she chose to do nothing at that point.

I don't see anything in the story that would lead me to believe she was doing nothing? How did you arrive at that conclusion?

I don't know how old she is, but since she's a college student, she must have had at least 18 years to figure out that stark terror often makes people do things they otherwise wouldn't, (after all, that seems to be what she and others are accusing Chili of) so he should have seen the potential for the child to cause himself injury.

I'm 55 and frankly... while I would have been trying to reassure the child, I would also have been shaking my head that the child was having this "panic attack" over the dog (provided the dog was being friendly). So no, I'm not on the same page with you here. And what "injury" do you suppose would befall a young healthy boy standing on a sidewalk next to a tennis court, come on........

IMO, this, and the fact that she was previously dwelling on Chili's failure to identify himself as an officer, point to her not caring enough to do anything as long as she thought she would face no consequences for her inaction. After all, the only difference I can see between a peace officer and any other concerned father in this situation is that the peace officer can cite her for the violation, while anyone else would only be able to yell at her.

I don't see what difference this should make....but thought it odd that she brought this up as well. I don't know her motive for making that statement, there may be something behind it, or it may be completely innocuous. Just another one of those things we don't know about this bazaar story.

I could make the claim that you have a bias about this incident because you know the man, but I don't really believe that anymore than I think his status as an officer or citizen has anything to do with the incident.