Kinder, gentler animal control
In response to the recent shootings of dogs and bad press, Midstate police are learning non-deadly methods of dealing with vicious dogs:
More than two dozen police and animal-control officers from throughout Middle Tennessee — including 10 officers from Hendersonville, where the most recent dog shooting occurred — were scheduled to attend.
”I don’t want to second-guess any police officer, but if you can avoid an encounter where you have to shoot somebody’s pet, that’s a good thing,” said Sgt. Ty Wilson of the White House, Tenn., Police Department, one of five officers from that department at the training. ”We’re duty-bound to protect the public from vicious dogs, and we need any help we can get on how to defuse that kind of encounter.”
In addition to learning to deal with vicious dogs, Wilson said his department hopes to avoid the ”media blast” surrounding the Cookeville dog shooting in January 2003 and the dog shooting in Hendersonville last month.
Good idea. However, sometimes shooting a vicious dog is unavoidable. It happens. But in the case of the Cookeville dog shooting, they could just hire less trigger-happy police.
November 30th, 2004 at 10:36 am
not to mention that bullets might end up somewhere else
November 30th, 2004 at 4:26 pm
A close friend of mine had his two dogs shot by police who hopped his fence (sans warrant) on a bogus marijuana tip. Thankfully, they survived, although one has hip problems to this day.
You want to make a man hate the police? Shoot his dog. Then arrest him so he can’t take the dog to the vet.