This is hard to watch. Especially if you love dogs.
This is exactly the kind of video that people who like to rag on honest cops love to throw in our faces as ‘proof’ that cops are power-mad, trigger happy or heartless monsters.
None of those criticisms are true. But video like this makes our defense of honest cops an uphill climb.
The officer in this video was responding to a report of several dogs on the loose. Body cam footage shows that he was already somewhat skittish as he was approaching the dogs.
Someone with him called ‘come here’. And the dogs came.
What followed next is heartbreaking for dog lovers:
They came when called. Three of them. Big dogs.
The cop backpedaled, pulled his gun, and shot one dead.
He knew he was going on an animal control call. Did he not have other, non-lethal options available?
We just saw a Florida cop wrangle a gator like a ninja, and catch him live.
Was there no animal-control pole available, since he knew it would be that kind of a call?
Were taser and nightstick — if he was really afraid of being bitten — not better options than his service weapon?
It doesn’t take a lot of creativity to think of better ways to resolve this.
If he wouldn’t have been that quick to shoot a person, one would hope someone in uniform would be a little more reluctant to shoot a dog, too.
It’s disappointing. And it’s one more brick that cop-haters can chuck at those of us who defend cops’ honor.
So preventable.
