I believe Cops serve a valuable purpose Francisfan, but I have had experiences with them that make me feel some abuse their authority. A) I drove in downtown Austin late last year to go see a musical act for my Theater performance, and let me tell you, downtown Austin makes Houston look easy to navigate, so I turned left on a street(no sign), and then see it was a one way-as I said no sign. So I quickly locate a turnaround spot(it happens to be police station). Cop turns on his lights and I sit there for 2-3 minutes and wait, he never steps out, so I leave and forget the whole thing. 10 minutes later I am still having trouble navigating, but the cop who saw me before finds me, and claims I had cut him off, which was not true to my recollection. Then he preceded to ask me 3 or 4 times if should be driving at night, and am I r****ded? If it wasn't a cop, the man would've been slugged. B) UT Parking-The cops we have are anal, case in point, it was Christmas break leave time, and I live far away from my car, so instead of loading up I drive to a spot right by my dorm(I look for a 30 minute one, but they're all gone, so I just park in a permit one, thinking I will be gone in 10 minutes, no big deal. Literally a minute or two later I bring my first load out, and a cop is fixing to write me a ticket. It's legal, but it's Christmas break and I told him that I was going home, and there were no avail spots-he put it away and luckily one of the spots came open, but still the guy tried to give me a stupid ticket when classes in the fall were over and I just wanted to go home. Then, I got two tickets for parking in unallowed spaces(guess what, no signs). So I find an officer, ask him what the hell the deal is, and he tells me one sign extends for like 10 spaces. UT parking and their kiddie cops use students to make money. Do you know we can't drive on campus until 5:30 pm. And we pay to go to this school. I love UT, but their parking policies suck. C) The KMart raid last summer-uncalled for, and the guy running it had marks on his record before that. D) According to my relatives, cops lined up a street by 59, and just started giving everyone tickets even for minor infractions, it was as if they had quotas to fill. Plus I see cops stationed in a turnaround spot by my old high school always, just looking for people to ticket. Ridiculous. E) These same law protecting cops can pull you over for speeding even though you were right next to a line of traffic and they sped to catch you or are going the same speed as you? Also, a lot of them take the liberty to not signal turns and speed when they have no reason too. Granted, most of us do that too, but some act as if they are above the law and it shouldn't be so. I respect cops a lot, but my experiences with Cops have lowered that respect a lot, and I think there are a lot of Cops who have no business being Cops and having so much authority and power in the first place.
Sorry, I made it sound like I was talking to you and you only, when I was actualy wasn't aiming it at specifically you. I was aiming it at the people who are thinking..police pull over a family on what turns out to be a false accusation...police aren't friendly (the forgot to ask if they wanted any tea and offer warm towels)...while yelling at the poor family a cop shoots the beloved family dog. Under the first article the author seems to be aiming it at those people... <BR><BR><B> The tape then shows the Smoaks' medium-size brown dog romping on the shoulder of the Interstate, its tail wagging. As the family yells, the dog, named Patton, first heads away from the road, then quickly circles back toward the family.<BR><br>An officer in a blue uniform aims his shotgun at the dog and fires at its head, killing it immediately. </b> <BR><BR> They make sure to mention the family name and the dog's name to make sure they humanize it. Then it says "officer in a blue uniform" I don't quite understand why they mention this. Then ofcourse they have got to go home and show the cross in which the family member is buried under. Though the article shows two sides it leans toward the poor family. Wether its purpose is to convey this fealing or to keep on the side of its readers I don't know, but I can say that an educated writer, which this person should be, knows the power they can have, how to acquire it for their own good, and blah blah blah.
FF- You seriously have issues, go seek help ASAP (seriosly I am not just dramatizing, it sounds like you have a problem which could cause problems in the future if you live around dogs in your neighborhood). Maybe you had a bad experience with a dog when you were younger but most rationale people wouldn't kill a dog if they feel threatened in anyway.
"I find it sickening that (this is only an opinion that is probably overlooking a whole lot, but anyways) people are looking at the police to being corrupt. A number of 20% was mentioned above... do you truthfully believe that? If you do you're going to put the cop that killed the dog and 20% of all cops a folder of your mind. So by now you believe that ONE IN FIVE OFFICERS ARE CORRUPTD, RACIALLY-PROFILING, RODNEY KING BEATING, WOMEN-RAPING, DOG KILLERS. " FF- I said (I think) 20% were a-holes, not corrupt. By a-hole I mean some who is basically looking to start trouble rather than to prevent it. Most cops are good guys but there are the few who are egotistical, a-holes who do crap just becaus they can.
I love dogs but if I felt threatened, I would protect myself also. If one 'threatened' my daughter, my response would not be subtle;i.e., the dog may not survive. I guess the issue is how one defines 'threat', but under some interpretations, FF's post could be considered quite rational.
I watched the video aat school, but from what I could remember all the officiers had blue on. If that was the case what would the significance of mentioning it be?
I had vaguely heard about this yesterday. Cookeville is like 90 minutes away from where I live and I went to Tennessee Tech my first semester in college. The people up around northern middle Tennessee aren't the sharpest tools in the shed (well, at least most of them). As a dog lover and owner (along with my parents), I feel like Jeff and DV and Surf. If that was my dog that got killed, I would have to spend a week or so in jail and then I would sue their asses. Stuff like this is completely UNACCEPTABLE. This Eric Hall needs to have his ass fired and then be only able to get a job like cleaning streets or better yet cleaning up dog **** for the rest of his life while making minimum wage....f*cking loser
Uh, RM95, if you like the one way streets and no left turns on half of them, then sure it is(when I talk downtown I mean Cesar Chavez through UT area). But to each his own.
Now this is wierd.. I spoke to my boss at work and she and her girlfriend don't have children, but rather dogs. They have a few that are mixes of "dangerous dogs" and she feels like the officer shooting the dog was validated. I cannot believe that people feel this way about the officer. The officer was in a position in which his life was in danger and his mindset was in a protection mode. An animal in which he had no knowledge of comes running to him when he is obviously making the dogs' owners irritated and the dog could try to be defending his family. I am dissapionted in the shoot first, think later reaction towards the officer by almost everyone here. Minimum wage for most officers is barely a step down. Teachers get paid more the police (or alteast where I'm acquainted with).
His life was not in danger by any means other than his own actions and fear. He and the other two officers did not listen to the family telling them to shut the car doors to not let the dog out, repeatedly I might add. 3 seconds later, the guy shoots the dog, that isn't even enough time to judge an attack. No matter what, Hall did this to himself, by not heeding the warnings, so guess what, he gets no sympathy from me. He does not deserve to be on the force again, and like those Baylor baseball players who got punished for skinning an innocent cat, he deserves legal sentencing as well. I'm sorry if some of us don't put the police on a pedestal like you do, I have dealt with nice cops and mean cops, but it does not mean they are above the law, and that applies here. There was no reason to kill this dog, and if anything the officer should get charged with reckless endangerment himself because he did not close the door like the family told him to. Hall deserves whatever he gets, and his reaction doesn't deserve validation or sympathy. He had no reason for this to ever happen, except his own stupidity. To be honest, if a cop is that arrogant and stupid, he deserved to had the dog attack him. It's not like this felony stop was by the book or anything. Policemen are definitely a valuable commodity, but not all are nice guys and good cops, and a lot do abuse their authority, from personal experiences. And no matter what, they are not above the law, and this is what it boils down to. You better believe if he did that to my family dog, it would've been on, and I don't care how hard I would hit him, either.
So the officers aren't listening to people when they're making an arrest on a potenitally dangerous charge? There we ****ing go...if he cannot judge an attck how can he judge a non-attack. With your claim that there was not time to make a judgement how can you say the officer was at wrong? So cops, who are running on a potentially dangerous suspession should go to a car inwhich they have no idea what could happen and close the door...or let the man walk to the car where he could pull a gun out? So you would attack a man with a gun that has just shown he's serious...you must be a ****ing idiot to think that you'd do so. <b>It boils down to what you said "[three seconds] isn't even enough time to judge an attack". By your own words you cannot judge wether the dog was going to attack, right. So that means that you can't judge the dog isn't going to attack, right. And when it comes to my life I would have pulled the trigger.</b> Is anyone here willing to admit that the officer was in a potentially dangerous environment and the dog allowed no time (<b>like DV said</b>) to determine on an attack?
Why should we give him the benefit of the doubt? I mean if he is so cocky as to not heed the repeated requests of shutting the car doors, he deserves no sympathy. If those utterances weren't made it's a whole different story, but so far, we have to go with what we have, which is the family told him to shut the doors multiple times. The family wasn't in the car, they were already out and being questioned. The cops were the ones right by the doors, with the dog inside. Fine, you think the family would use the cop, then why didn't the guy offer to allow them to simply shut the door and watch them. Even so, why would a family who had done nothing wrong, but have an unfortunate event happen, lie to the police. Even if they would, like I said, either the cops could've watched the family while he performed the simple and safe task, or asked the family to do it and watched them intently. All cops when they arrest people search them first or ask them to put their hands up. And there were 3 of them, why couldn't two watch while the other closes the door. No matter how you look at it, that reaction was wrong. And because the cop made his own bed, his reaction is not justifable at all. He deserves to pay. As far as the attacking a cop goes, you can not imagine the anger and adrenaline rush that I would have at that moment, like I said to me my dog is a part of my family. In every way. If I could restrain myself, it would be a higher power looking out for me. No matter what, I would get the guy kicked off the force and sue the police. To you a dog is a nuisance to be extinguished, to me and most others in this thread, a dog is a lovable companion who we treat as if it was our own child. That is why we feel so strongly about this. I am not vilifying your opinion on dogs, but with the current facts of this case, I cannot see how this cop does not deserve to lose his job. He made a decision with warning not to, that put everyone on site at risk no matter what, so at the very least he is guilty of reckless endangerment, and because he shot the dog, which if it's true about the family warnings, makes him guilty of murder because his actions show a pattern which would indicate it was premeditated. That is a big if though. However, no matter how different we are on our opinion of the cop's reaction, you cannot deny this animal should not have died, and that the cop did this to himself with his actions and deserves a very severe punishment. You just cannot have people in those positions who can't handle it, and it's obvious this situation was one this police officer should not have been assigned to cover.
To me, it all boils down to mentality. Some people who become cops can't handle it because they let a little power get to their heads. When I read the initial post of this thread that described the whole situation, the first thing that popped in my head (after reading) was that the family told the cops to close the doors. It is almost like the cops had this attitude of "We are not going to let these people tell us what to do. We're the ones in control ." One of my best friends that I have known since we were in kindergarten was a cop for the city I live in. He did a pretty good job until that one fateful night. He pulled over some woman who was in her 60s because of something stupid like expired tags. What he didn't know was that she had some medical condition that caused her to have panic attacks when she got scared or nervous. She stopped her car but got out to walk around due to her "panic attack". My buddy told her to stop but she kept walking around. Feeling that his life was "threatened" , he maced her! Guess what happened to him? He resigned under pressure. Some people just can't handle having a little bit of power and Eric Hall sounds like one of those people. Oh and if minimum wage is not that much of a step down from what he already makes (which I guess you are saying that he makes already around 20k) then let him work for no salary for a month and then pay him minimum wage.
FF- So a dog running at a cop (with it's tail wagging) with 4 other cops standing around warrants killing the dog? The scene was SECURE (notice the 3 family members on the ground, not in a position to fight or flee) except the fact that the cop was too incompetent to close the car door even after being asked to do so. If you believe that it's no wonder cops shoot kids in the back everyday. Imagine their fear as they see a 12 year old running away, he11 they must be scared he is running to get help or to get a gun. This cop was an incompetent piece of crap.
Here, one of the family members admits the dog was running, jumping, AND barking when it exited the car. http://story.herald-citizen.com/newsstory2.htm Again, I think the officers could have probably handled this differently, but anyone who thinks a felony stop for a police officer isn't a scary, tense moment is a fricken moron. No amount of training can make someone immune to the fact that they are in a dangerous situation where at any moment, a deperate person might do something stupid and someone can get either hurt or killed. I'd probably already be dead and buried if it had been my dog, but if I had been the officer and I had no idea whether or not these people were innocent or guilty--or what their motive was for telling me to close the car door (maybe to distract me)--or maybe I wasn't the one near the car door--and I was in a tense, felony stop--and a pit-bull looking dog came toward me in an aggressive manner--AND I WAS SCARED OF DOGS--I would have shot that dog too. I'm not really scared of dogs (perhaps too a fault), but I've seen enough people who are to know that it's pretty common. Again, I think this is a very unfortunate situation. I wish the police would have handled things a little differently. But I'm also aware that I'm not privy to how they are trained, and closing that car door (or moving out of position and taking their eyes of the "perps") may have been something they weren't supposed to be doing. I really don't know....and neither do any of you. (though experience tells me that some of you will say otherwise) Still, it's not that difficult to see how this situation got out of hand.
Although....I have to admit that I'm pretty stupid for even sticking up for my point. The sheer number of posters on this board who venomously loath police officers is well documented. This is the last venue for rational discussion on this matter.
