Of Dogs and Men

[Occam's Banana]

Of Dogs and Men (2016) - Full Documentary - [Free]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sqh-mLDmWAU
{Michael Ozias | 25 January 2022}

Sharing this documentary, Of Dogs and Men, made with love in 2016

10,000 pet dogs are shot by law enforcement every year in the United States according to a US Department of Justice estimate; Of Dogs and Men takes audiences on a journey with pet owners through the tragedy of loss and pursuit of change in a legal system in which the very officers they challenge are an integral part.

[Occam's Banana]

I found the video in the OP via a branched Twitter thread.

The thread started with this tweet ...

https://twitter.com/CrazyHubb/status...87738646847804
[from a 2020 incident: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...-offender.html]

... then there are several exchanges [hidden to save space] ...

 

https://twitter.com/LilMandee86/stat...48520730472791
& https://twitter.com/JonathanDole2/st...57195478069573


https://twitter.com/michaelmalice/st...81685335453852


https://twitter.com/two0ate/status/1743391040671977803


https://twitter.com/michaelmalice/st...93364160946604
& https://twitter.com/EddieK_1987/stat...94106859032982
[article link: https://thoughtcatalog.com/michael-m...ed-the-police/]


https://twitter.com/michaelmalice/st...94400237977958
& https://twitter.com/BillHodges__/sta...95754171945115

... leading to this:

https://twitter.com/michaelmalice/st...97214662037894

[Occam's Banana]

This would be a good thread for future "cop shoots dog" stories.

Here's one from the same year the OP documentary was released:

Police Officer Shoots Dog, Then Leaves Note for Family Before Continuing With His Day
https://www.pawbuzz.com/dog-shot-by-police/
{pawbuzz | 24 May 2016}

You would think an award-winning deputy would know how to handle a neighbor’s dog who was barking and protecting his human’s property.

But this wasn’t the case with Bruno. This loyal German Shepherd was simply doing his job and being a good dog when he saw a stranger approach. Bruno barked a warning, but the stranger kept coming. And then the stranger shot him and left him to die. What’s unbelievable about this story is that the shooter in question was a decorated police deputy. He had been called to the neighborhood to check on a disturbance call and somehow ended up at the wrong house. Feeling threatened by Bruno, the officer decided the best course of action was to shoot him. Then he left a note for his owners, got back into his car and drove away. Here’s the deputy’s note.

[image hidden to save space]

 

He claimed on the note that he had been attacked, but a surveillance video showed otherwise. Bruno’s family came home to find their dog shot, crying and bleeding on their lawn. He was rushed to a veterinary hospital, where doctors saved his life. However, he needs a shoulder replacement or his front leg amputated… both costly procedures. As a final insult to injury, the sheriff’s office refused to pay for Bruno’s medical expenses. They defended the officer’s actions, and said they did not take the dog to the hospital because they were not a “dog ambulance service.”

"Some animals ..."

https://www.cnn.com/2023/09/26/polit...ent/index.html

[Occam's Banana]

Laughing After Dispatching Dogs (Not Just a Meme)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nVlwxH4BjAc
{LackLuster | 02 April 2024}

Benton Sheriff: https://www.facebook.com/BenCoWASheriff/

Michelle Asks For Donations To Go Here:
- Mikey's Chance Canine Rescue: https://www.mikeyschance.com/
- The Pit Bull Pen: https://www.thepitbullpen.com/

[PAF]

Laughing After Dispatching Dogs (Not Just a Meme)

There’s that word again: “policy”.

[Occam's Banana]

Cops Raid Wrong House - Blames Auto-Correct
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sMYiDCKWRXs
{LackLuster | 06 May 2024}

Finn's GoFundMe: https://www.gofundme.com/f/f8r86c-justice-for-finn

[Occam's Banana]

SERVICE. AND. PROTECTION.

NOT INTENTIONALLY MALEVOLENT

Cop Kills BLIND 10 Pound Shih Tzu | City Defends the Shooting!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OrHL2URBXWk
{The Civil Rights Lawyer | 24 May 2024}

From the pinned comment:

Sign the Petition here: https://www.change.org/p/animal-crue...ocation=search
City of Sturgeon, MO Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100064357072247

[Occam's Banana]

Cop KICKS Dog | Caught on DoorBell Video | Does your Family Pet have Rights?
https://thecivilrightslawyer.com/202...t-have-rights/
{John H. Bryan | 03 June 2024}

This footage was submitted from Calcasieu Parish, Louisiana, showing the Calcasieu Parish Sheriff’s Office knocking on a man’s door and then kicking his tiny dog shortly afterwards, after the dog apparently attempted to urinate on the cop’s leg. The officers knocked on the man’s door while investigating him for allegedly causing damage to a police cruiser. Without obtaining a warrant first, the officers ended up arresting the man.

As I’ve explained numerous times, according to the 1980 Supreme Court opinion in Payton v. New York, in order to legally arrest someone in a home, rather than in a public place, absent consent or exigent circumstances, police officers must have a warrant. But what about kicking the homeowner’s dog? Or shooting the dog?

As an initial matter, it is well-settled that privately owned dogs are “effects” under the Fourth Amendment, and that the shooting and killing of such a dog constitutes a “seizure.” So it’s a different legal standard that standard police shooting cases. It’s an overall reasonableness standard, recognizing that police can shoot dogs where officer safety justifies the decision.

The question is whether, at the time the officer shot the dog, he held a reasonable belief that the dog posed a threat to himself or others. If the facts are sufficient to show that such a belief was unreasonable, then the law is clearly established in most circuits that shooting a dog under those circumstances would constitute an unreasonable seizure of property under the Fourth Amendment. That’s not a great way of looking at the value of our dogs, but that’s the actual legal analysis.

Cop KICKS Dog | Caught on DoorBell Video | Does your Family Pet have Rights?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vm2j-VtTU-E
{The Civil Rights Lawyer | 03 June 2024}

From the pinned comment:

DETAILS: https://thecivilrightslawyer.com/202...t-have-rights/
Blind Dog Video: https://youtu.be/OrHL2URBXWk [see this post - OB]
Cops Shoot Puppy Video: https://youtu.be/gZZB_oiDUmg [see this post - OB]

[Occam's Banana]

SERVICE. AND. PROTECTION.

NOT INTENTIONALLY MALEVOLENT

Cop Kills BLIND 10 Pound Shih Tzu | City Defends the Shooting!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OrHL2URBXWk
{The Civil Rights Lawyer | 24 May 2024}

From the pinned comment:

Sign the Petition here: https://www.change.org/p/animal-crue...ocation=search
City of Sturgeon, MO Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100064357072247

A police officer shot a blind pet dog. This small town wants justice.
The killing of Teddy the dog in Sturgeon, Mo., has upended the small, 900-person town, as residents call for the dismissal of officer Myron Woodson.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/natio...ficer-outrage/
[archive link: https://archive.ph/RxMO1]
{Dan Rosenzweig-Ziff | 01 June 2024}

People are talking about it everywhere Judy Ledbetter goes in her 900-person Missouri community: At the Dollar General. At the meat market. At the Walmart pharmacy.

“It’s nonstop,” said Ledbetter, 73. “It’s one of the most dramatic things I’ve ever seen.”

A police officer called to help a blind and deaf dog shot it within moments of pulling up on scene. And Sturgeon residents want justice.

In a slice of small-town America where government meetings typically focus on issues like yard junk, and where city officials and residents refer to each other by first name, life has been upended by the saga of Teddy the Shih Tzu.

The zero-stoplight town has been thrust into turmoil in the nearly two weeks since the May 19 shooting of the 13-pound dog; the mayor resigned after initially defending the policeman. The new one suspended the officer. The dog’s owner filed a federal civil rights lawsuit asking for more than $1 million in damages.

Some residents, including those who describe themselves as pro-police, have gone as far as calling for the dismantling of their two-officer law enforcement agency.

“I think until you get this entire problem solved with the police department, you shut it down,” one man said to applause during a contentious city aldermen meeting this week.

But as outrage has steadily grown in and beyond Sturgeon, the city has declined to dismiss the officer, despite his actions appearing to go against city code. On Thursday, the aldermen launched an investigation into Myron Woodson, who will be on paid leave until its completion, according to a statement the mayor sent to The Washington Post.

Officials otherwise declined to answer questions from The Post, and the officer could not be reached for comment. City code calls for police to impound strays for about a week, housing and feeding them “in a humane manner.”

“This whole situation never should have happened,” said Abbey Harnish, who initially took in Teddy with her former fiancé, Nick Hunter. “It was handled in the wrong way entirely.”

The incident has brought international attention and a 54,000-signature Change.org petition to Sturgeon, a city with the tagline “a great place to grow!” Smaller than a square mile, it’s home to more churches (four) than restaurants (one). It’s the kind of place where golf carts are as common as cars, and where people exchange crops at the community garden on an honor system.

When Teddy escaped from his outdoor kennel on a sunny Sunday, the neighbor who found him posted on the community Facebook page looking for his owner. Pets on the run are common in Sturgeon, to the point where some are “frequent fliers we all know,” said Gina Miller, Ledbetter’s daughter.

Posts about them pop up on social media one or two times a week, and usually the owners are soon on their way over.

This time, though, the woman who found the lost 5-year-old dog noticed he seemed to be confused and at least partially blind, and she worried he could wander off or get hurt. So she called police for help. Woodson, a former corrections officer recently hired by the city, spent a few minutes trying to corral him. Then he fired two shots.

An hour or so later, Teddy’s owner Hunter was tearfully confronting Woodson. In a videotaped exchange, the officer said he shot the dog because he thought Teddy was injured and a stray.

The next day, the city posted a different explanation on its 1,400-follower Facebook page: The officer shot the dog out of concern it had rabies. The city later said it had reviewed the body-camera footage and found the officer’s actions justified.

Each development left residents angrier. The tension reached a crescendo last weekend when Mayor Kevin Abrahamson resigned without publicly disclosing a reason. The new mayor said the city board did not agree with the ex-mayor’s statement excusing the shooting. The rest of the board had only seen body-camera footage when a local outlet released it, the statement said.

“Like you, we were just as appalled by what we saw,” wrote mayor pro tem Seth Truesdell. “The actions of the Officer involved are not the values and beliefs of the residents of Sturgeon or the board of Alderman.”

By Tuesday, Hunter’s attorneys had filed a civil rights suit alleging the officer conducted an unlawful seizure of Hunter’s pet and the city failed to properly train Woodson to interact with the dog. The suit drew the backing of the national Animal Legal Defense Fund, which said in a statement it would provide a grant to help cover costs.

The organization included a quote from James Crosby, who wrote the Justice Department’s manual on law enforcement dog encounters, and said after viewing body-camera footage that what happened in Sturgeon could be the “least justifiable dog shooting I’ve ever witnessed in my 30-plus years working with law enforcement.”

Daniel Kolde, one of the attorneys who brought the suit, said a previous case he litigated in the state ended with a $750,000 settlement to a dog’s owner. He suggested more than civil penalties could be warranted in the Sturgeon case.

“We think that Officer Woodson’s actions constitute felony animal abuse and, in addition to our filing of our civil suit, we are calling upon the county prosecutor to bring his own criminal charges against this officer,” Kolde told The Post.

Neither the county prosecutor nor the state attorney general responded to inquiries about whether criminal charges are possible.

One resident, who spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear of repercussions in the small town, told The Post the incident has made some turn on city officials. Others said they now plan to go to every meeting to make sure they know what their elected officials are doing.

The night the lawsuit was filed, city aldermen met for their regularly scheduled monthly meeting. Dozens of Sturgeon residents came. Others drove in from a town 40 minutes away.

Miller arrived beforehand to set up a table outside with a tri-fold poster of Teddy photos, a donation jar and card for Hunter with the words “Puppy love.”

“Run free Teddy,” one person wrote. “You are loved and missed.”

One by one, residents blasted the police department, alleging to elected officials that it lacked oversight.

“This is your town,” a woman holding a “Justice for Teddy” sign told others in the crowd. “If you don’t speak up now, you might not ever get anything to change.”

Some community members said they’d prefer to rely on Boone County sheriff’s deputies, like other rural towns do.

“We back the blue except Woodson,” one resident’s sign read. “Fire him!”

Tuesday’s meeting ended with city officials promising to investigate the issue, formally launching the investigation 48 hours later. They said it would be conducted by a third party and made public at its conclusion.

But the sentiment to close the police department persisted days later, even for Ledbetter, who comes from a family of law enforcement officers.

“We don’t need cops,” she said. “Not in this town.”

Teddy’s supporters said they’d keep pushing for more change. Harnish, who recently moved to Iowa, hoped they’d not only fire the officer but also set higher standards for the rest of the department.

“Ultimately, nothing is going to bring my dog back,” she said. “But there’s something that needs to be done and change with both the city and the cop.”

[Occam's Banana]

Officer Safety VS Puppy - Can they be sued?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZZB_oiDUmg
{The Civil Rights Lawyer | 17 June 2022}

Police officer bodycam footage from the Loveland Police Department shows an all-to-frequent occurrence, this time involving a couple’s 14 month old dog, which unfortunately is no longer with us. After the incident a supervisor arrived, and allegedly said to write a ticket, because the couple was going to the media.

Did this look reasonable to you?

What is the law in these type of situations?

[Occam's Banana]

THREAD: IA - Cop shoots kid's dog

Been seeing more of this...back to normal I guess.

https://x.com/Mrgunsngear/status/1828617700890857978

[Occam's Banana]

No cops in this one. Just dogs.

CLIP from SYSTEM UPDATE #358:

Former Addict Niall Harbison Saved By Mission To Rescue Street Dogs
https://rumble.com/v5k7v6l-former-ad...reet-dogs.html
{Glenn Greenwald | 26 October 2024}

[Occam's Banana]

Of Dogs and Men

Squirrels, too:

The State hates you - and by extension, it hates the things you love:

Not quite sure where to put this...

https://x.com/AntiFeder1776/status/1852542340088418657

[TheTexan]

Of Dogs and Men (2016) - Full Documentary - [Free]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sqh-mLDmWAU
{Michael Ozias | 25 January 2022}

Sharing this documentary, Of Dogs and Men, made with love in 2016

10,000 pet dogs are shot by law enforcement every year in the United States according to a US Department of Justice estimate; Of Dogs and Men takes audiences on a journey with pet owners through the tragedy of loss and pursuit of change in a legal system in which the very officers they challenge are an integral part.

I'd let Victoria Stilwell train my dog

[Anti Federalist]

Squirrels, too:

Thanks, a much more fitting place for that story.

[Occam's Banana]

Squirrels, too:

THREAD: Rest in Peace, P-Nut the Squirrel

[SeanTX]

Sounds like this deputy on an 'animal welfare check' wasn't even in any danger, or put himself there -- going into a dwelling to shoot dogs, shooting others outside that were in pens :

https://www.waff.com/2024/11/15/sher...TMSloSWuMQgZFQ

Sheriff’s deputy fired after allegedly killing 7 dogs during animal welfare check

MCNAIRY CO., Tenn. (WMC/Gray News) - A former Memphis sheriff’s deputy was fired after he allegedly shot and killed seven dogs during an animal welfare check.

According to the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, the now-former McNairy County Sheriff’s deputy Connor Brackin was responding to a property to check on the dogs.

The dogs were the subjects of an animal welfare concern call made on Nov. 4, deputies said.

For reasons unknown, Brackin began shooting and killing seven dogs once he arrived on the property.

Authorities said Brackin released one of the dogs to the person who made the welfare call, but it wasn’t made clear why.

A warrant was issued for Brackin’s arrest on Tuesday.

He was charged with seven counts of aggravated cruelty to animals and eight counts of reckless endangerment.

Since then, he turned himself in and has since been released on bond.

The sheriff’s office said Brackin was employed two days shy of one month in total before his termination.

[Occam's Banana]

Cops Laugh After Ending Man's Dog, As His House Burns Down - (John Wick Origin Story IRL)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGrT47_Trno
{LackLuster | 13 November 2024}

[TheTexan]

Cops Laugh After Ending Man's Dog, As His House Burns Down - (John Wick Origin Story IRL)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGrT47_Trno
{LackLuster | 13 November 2024}

I'm glad noone got hurt, those dogs looked like they were thinking about ways to attack the brave Officer/Fireman duo

The other dog ran away when shots were fired because the dog knew he was guilty. Innocent dogs don't run

[TheTexan]

Cops Laugh After Ending Man's Dog, As His House Burns Down - (John Wick Origin Story IRL)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGrT47_Trno
{LackLuster | 13 November 2024}

@8:25 it "almost" makes you feel like you can't call law enforcement for help?

[Occam's Banana]

"... and now for something completely different ..."

CLIP from SYSTEM UPDATE #380:

From Mangled Puppy To Joyous Dog: Pulo's Incredible Rescue Story
https://rumble.com/v5zamzn-from-mang...cue-story.html
{Glenn Greenwald | 14 December 2024}