Cops go overboard: shoot pets in front of children during raid

Okay, let's consider an alternate perspective first for a second before every begins making negative attributions about the cops' personalities.

Put yourself in their shoes: they are going into a totally unknown and unfamiliar place, and have no idea what's behind that door. They don't know if they'll encounter a group of women or children or an armed assailant with a gun. They don't know if it's the latter if he wants to go down fighting, is high on drugs, or just plain crazy. Their adrenaline is jacked, and frankly they're scared. Another thing that scares them are dogs, and unfortunately the dog that was shot happens to be of a kind that are frequent biters. They don't know if they're going to be bitten or distracted from searching the room, possibly missing a perpetrator (yes, these things have happened).

Now, they really didn't have an excuse for shooting the dog that was locked in the cage, but if you give it some thought, you can understand why this sort of thing is SOP for them. They're more concerned about their lives and the lives of people inside than those of the animals, although in this particular situation I don't think it was warranted. The dog was locked up, and couldn't get out even it meant to bite the officers. Therefore, it didn't need to be killed.

Before you start calling people names, consider the situation they're in. That's all I'm saying. Did they screw up? Yes. Are they bad people? Not necessarily.

EDIT: I'm sure I'll get flamed for this, but what else is new.
 
I have no idea about their training. I do know that, regardless of training, people are capable of making the wrong judgment.
 
stansfield.jpg

What filthy piece of shit did I do now?
 
I have no idea about their training. I do know that, regardless of training, people are capable of making the wrong judgment.

And should officers not be held to a higher standard of accountability for their judgments?
 
Aw, hell's bells. They even shot the dog.
 
"Nothing is black and white for [cops]. Nothing. We live in the grey area." - Southland

That's after a rookie cop punched a criminal wearing handcuffs after he had just got finished strangling the cop's new love interest to death.
 
Put yourself in their shoes: they are going into a totally unknown and unfamiliar place, and have no idea what's behind that door. They don't know if they'll encounter a group of women or children or an armed assailant with a gun.

All the more reason NOT to fire shots at the first thing that moves. Furthermore , are you seriously trying to justify the use of that kind of force when these guys were in full body armor ?, i could probably understand if they were normal cops but these guys were SWAT.
 
Okay, let's consider an alternate perspective first for a second before every begins making negative attributions about the cops' personalities.

Put yourself in their shoes: they are going into a totally unknown and unfamiliar place, and have no idea what's behind that door. They don't know if they'll encounter a group of women or children or an armed assailant with a gun. They don't know if it's the latter if he wants to go down fighting, is high on drugs, or just plain crazy. Their adrenaline is jacked, and frankly they're scared. Another thing that scares them are dogs, and unfortunately the dog that was shot happens to be of a kind that are frequent biters. They don't know if they're going to be bitten or distracted from searching the room, possibly missing a perpetrator (yes, these things have happened).

Now, they really didn't have an excuse for shooting the dog that was locked in the cage, but if you give it some thought, you can understand why this sort of thing is SOP for them. They're more concerned about their lives and the lives of people inside than those of the animals, although in this particular situation I don't think it was warranted. The dog was locked up, and couldn't get out even it meant to bite the officers. Therefore, it didn't need to be killed.

Before you start calling people names, consider the situation they're in. That's all I'm saying. Did they screw up? Yes. Are they bad people? Not necessarily.

EDIT: I'm sure I'll get flamed for this, but what else is new.

"OH SHIT A ****ING DOG! SHOOT IT! SHOOT IT! SHOOOOOOT IITTT!!!"

*BLAM BLAM BLAM*

"holy **** that was scary. What? Don't harp to me about leashes and shit, IT WAS A ****ING PITBULL, WHAT DO YOU EXPECT ME TO DO???"
 
"OH SHIT A ****ING DOG! SHOOT IT! SHOOT IT! SHOOOOOOT IITTT!!!"

*BLAM BLAM BLAM*

"holy **** that was scary. What? Don't harp to me about leashes and shit, IT WAS A ****ING PITBULL, WHAT DO YOU EXPECT ME TO DO???"

ITT: Oversimplification of potential life-and-death situations.

I wasn't going to start the war, but now someone has posted the advocacy position and I gotta say I side with him. Most cops are not satan-worshipping, baby-stabbing, dog-kicking sociopaths. They are regular people who make regular people mistakes. Shit happens.

All the training in the world doesn't make a difference if there's some new guy on there fresh out of Iraq who's been trained to kill-kill-kill in the military, or say a greenhorn who panicked and fired. It's dark, it's ugly, and a lot of split-second decisions get made without the ability to think about them beforehand.
 
None of that is justification, nor any reason not to hold them to a higher standard of responsibility for their actions, be it accidental or otherwise.

As officers, their purpose is to protect the safety of civilians and their properties and keep order. Nothing they did in this situation aided in this cause.
 
They're more concerned about their lives and the lives of people inside

Bull ****ing shit. If this were even remotely true, consider the fact that these are supposed to be "professional protectors".
-An average person, let alone a ****ing cop understands that firing a gun inside a home is dangerous and should only be done if it is absolutely necessary; what if one of the family members was in the floor below? What if that bullet went into one of the children's rooms? "Oh gee sorry, we were trying to kill this dog because it was barking, but in the process also accidentally shot your 5 year old son, uhh real sorry, I know I'm supposed to know these sort of things but uhhhhh I'm the authority here, sooo durp durpdy durp...."

Also look at it from the view of the man of the house, someone starts screaming at you while you are asleep at 3 AM, busts down your door and then shoots your dog; the reaction from normal human beings would be "HOLY **** SOMEONE JUST BROKE IN AND IS SHOOTING MY DOGS". Can you imagine if he was a gun owner and didn't know what the **** was going on and just thought someone was breaking in and killing his family?

Don't ****ing kid yourself man, the cops in this video are a bunch of trigger happy morons that want to boast their authority in any way that they can.
 
I like our SWAT better: You can't shoot people or pets to death with truncheons and shields.
 
I saw that numbers posted and I was hoping he would come in here and start giving crazy justifications for the cops.

How disappointing.

That being said, I don't think we have enough information to judge in this case - for all we know it might be police doctrine in that area to shoot dogs on sight in high-profile raid operations (which this apparently was; misinformation).
 
I saw that numbers posted and I was hoping he would come in here and start giving crazy justifications for the cops.

How disappointing.

That being said, I don't think we have enough information to judge in this case - for all we know it might be police doctrine in that area to shoot dogs on sight in high-profile raid operations (which this apparently was; misinformation).

Well, you know, I was going to.

Actually...

The police officers involved were completely justified in their actions of the handling of the situation. Dogs are notoriously dangerous, especially breeds such as... those shown in the video. It is also unclear at the moment if the children involved are concealing weapons or not, and that they should be treated as dangerous criminals, because let's face it: this man was a druggie. He could be high on narcotics right now and think that he was God reincarnate and proceed to take on the SWAT guys, ripping them to pieces, and bludgeoning them to death with the ripped-off arms of his own children. It's also obvious that the fear of the family is feigned. They could be hiding C4 explosives inside their clothing. The fact is, you have no idea, what those people are capable of after you breach - for all the cops know, those kids might really be kids, or they might be midget ****ing ninja assasins that would tear their larynxes and shit down their neck. Police intelligence is faulty at the best of times, and the SWAT officers there must prepare for the worst. The two dogs prolly turned into the dogs of Hades, straight from hell, later on (and not shown in the video).
 
in times like this, its best to own a Pulse Rifle with plenty of secondary ammo!

anyway its been a long time since I've seen a video showing any police man doing the right thing, and this stacks up there of America's dumbest cops
 
Did he say he was "considering bringing charges" for shooting his dogs? What's there to consider, man. Take them to the cleaners.

Normally, I would string some obscenities right here to show my disgust.
 
[Krynn Quote Removed for Clarity]

Bull ****ing shit. If this were even remotely true, consider the fact that these are supposed to be "professional protectors".
-An average person, let alone a ****ing cop understands that firing a gun inside a home is dangerous and should only be done if it is absolutely necessary; what if one of the family members was in the floor below? What if that bullet went into one of the children's rooms? "Oh gee sorry, we were trying to kill this dog because it was barking, but in the process also accidentally shot your 5 year old son, uhh real sorry, I know I'm supposed to know these sort of things but uhhhhh I'm the authority here, sooo durp durpdy durp...."

Also look at it from the view of the man of the house, someone starts screaming at you while you are asleep at 3 AM, busts down your door and then shoots your dog; the reaction from normal human beings would be "HOLY **** SOMEONE JUST BROKE IN AND IS SHOOTING MY DOGS". Can you imagine if he was a gun owner and didn't know what the **** was going on and just thought someone was breaking in and killing his family?

Don't ****ing kid yourself man, the cops in this video are a bunch of trigger happy morons that want to boast their authority in any way that they can.
Today 09:20 PM

You've been in their shoes (or any similarly dangerous situation) how many times? When you're a SWAT officer there's an expectation that what's on the other side of that door could be armed with anything short of a tactical nuke. If they thought a SWAT team was necessary in the first place then they were likely expecting heavy resistance to begin with.

As I said, it's dark, it's fast, and it's downright terrifying for everyone involved. If there is a nondescript shape of approximately a dog's form, and the training dictates canines are dangerous then that gun is going to fire.

People **** up. People **** up tremendously under duress. Don't try to say 'they should have taken a second look.' How many times have you 'taken a second look' in what you believed to be a life-threatening situation? What if their intel didn't indicate there were children? Whose fault then?

Much of this is hypothetical, but at least they are reasonable. Snap judgments are rarely perfect, and hindsight is always 20/20.

Let your heart bleed for the dogs, but don't try to post an unreasonable expectation of perfection from human beings. Uniforms don't make us infallible. That is, unless you're wearing Mobile Infantry armor, then all bets are off.
 
herp derp

I honestly don't even know what you're trying to argue anymore. You're right, people **** up, no doubt about that. None at all. You're also right, SWAT officers are human beings, no doubt about that either, unless there's a canine unit in the mix.

I don't think anybody has denied that at all. They're humans, humans **** up. When humans screw up, they get punished. In this case, some trigger happy pigs shot some dogs up, so they'll probably get fired, maybe get a civil suit. End. What are you trying to argue here?
 
Bull ****ing shit. If this were even remotely true, consider the fact that these are supposed to be "professional protectors".
-An average person, let alone a ****ing cop understands that firing a gun inside a home is dangerous and should only be done if it is absolutely necessary; what if one of the family members was in the floor below? What if that bullet went into one of the children's rooms? "Oh gee sorry, we were trying to kill this dog because it was barking, but in the process also accidentally shot your 5 year old son, uhh real sorry, I know I'm supposed to know these sort of things but uhhhhh I'm the authority here, sooo durp durpdy durp...."

Also look at it from the view of the man of the house, someone starts screaming at you while you are asleep at 3 AM, busts down your door and then shoots your dog; the reaction from normal human beings would be "HOLY **** SOMEONE JUST BROKE IN AND IS SHOOTING MY DOGS". Can you imagine if he was a gun owner and didn't know what the **** was going on and just thought someone was breaking in and killing his family?

Don't ****ing kid yourself man, the cops in this video are a bunch of trigger happy morons that want to boast their authority in any way that they can.

First off, you're right, they are absolutely reticent to fire their weapons, not only because it is dangerous, but they also have a lot of explaining to do afterwards. Perhaps there's something we don't know here about the dog incident that made them fire their weapons. Or they just made a mistake (see earlier post for explanation).

Second, did you not hear at the beginning that they shouted "POLICE, SEARCH WARRANT" for at least 10 seconds before entering the house? They gave the guy plenty of fair warning, and in many situations that time is enough for a perpetrator to arm and prepare himself for the assault. It's done specifically to avoid what you described.

Third, you can't call them "trigger-happy morons" when you clearly have no experience yourself, and are not qualified to make that judgment (I'm not either, hence why I'm not making judgments here, only listing possible explanations).


All the more reason NOT to fire shots at the first thing that moves. Furthermore , are you seriously trying to justify the use of that kind of force when these guys were in full body armor ?, i could probably understand if they were normal cops but these guys were SWAT.

Clearly you have no idea of what you're talking about. Body armor is not impermeable by a long shot, and the bullets from many hunting rifles will easily penetrate it. Most SWAT officers are wearing Level IIIa or III armor, which will stop 7.62x39 and maybe a 7.62x51. Anything bigger, forget it. Not to mention if they get hit in the leg, which is unprotected by armor, and can bleed out in 4 minutes, or the head. Believe me, they're just as scared as "regular" cops, if not moreso.
 
i was actually referring to keeping them safe from the dogs not guns , granted its probably not going to completely protect them from a bite. But it should give them the time(confidence?) to safely assess the situation.
 
Nope, their legs (the most likely part to be bitten) are for the most part only covered in the cloth of their uniforms. Dog bites can be nasty too, with plenty of post-bite complications including infection. It's no joke, and if it came down to it, I would've shot the dog too.

Then again, this one was in a cage...
 
Okay, let's consider an alternate perspective first for a second before every begins making negative attributions about the cops' personalities.

Put yourself in their shoes: they are going into a totally unknown and unfamiliar place, and have no idea what's behind that door. They don't know if they'll encounter a group of women or children or an armed assailant with a gun. They don't know if it's the latter if he wants to go down fighting, is high on drugs, or just plain crazy. Their adrenaline is jacked, and frankly they're scared. Another thing that scares them are dogs, and unfortunately the dog that was shot happens to be of a kind that are frequent biters. They don't know if they're going to be bitten or distracted from searching the room, possibly missing a perpetrator (yes, these things have happened).

Now, they really didn't have an excuse for shooting the dog that was locked in the cage, but if you give it some thought, you can understand why this sort of thing is SOP for them. They're more concerned about their lives and the lives of people inside than those of the animals, although in this particular situation I don't think it was warranted. The dog was locked up, and couldn't get out even it meant to bite the officers. Therefore, it didn't need to be killed.

Before you start calling people names, consider the situation they're in. That's all I'm saying. Did they screw up? Yes. Are they bad people? Not necessarily.

EDIT: I'm sure I'll get flamed for this, but what else is new.

I agree with all above points.

I still think they should sue the shit out of these cops, but I understand why what happened happened and acknowledge that it doesn't mean the SWAT team was looking for something to kill and a way to boost their egos. Seriously, though, I expect they did some recon before assaulting and that should have led to determining that there are dogs in the house. They should have been non-lethally incapacitated.

It's ****ing sad, what happened.
 
I'm willing to accept that legal charges are pressed, but demonizing police officers for mistakes is idiotic at best. Their intel was probably less than perfect if they were going after this guy in the first place.
 
Cops have to be held to a near perfect standard. They have to be almost infallible. That's the price they pay for accepting extreme special rights by society. If you have the right to use violence on people without consequence, you have to be held accountable every single time you abuse that power to any degree what so ever. No other groups of people in society have the right to beat you, restrain you or kill you except cops. That's why we should demand perfectionism from them.

Uniforms don't make us infallible.
No, but they should. With great powers come great responsibility.
 
But no matter the occupation or training, you have to accept that, like everybody else, police officers are human and therefore capable of poor judgment, although on a lesser scale than people who have not received that training. Your expectation of near-perfect judgment is not realistic.
 
No ****ing shit leib. Thats not what he (and myself) are arguing against. We're saying that they need to be held to a higher level of accountability for their actions because we give them all these extra rights that could be abused, mistakenly or otherwise. We know they're human, no shit, its a bit obvious. What we're saying is that their mistakes should have harsh consequences as a balance for their incredibly dangerous rights over us citizens.
 
But no matter the occupation or training, you have to accept that, like everybody else, police officers are human and therefore capable of poor judgment, although on a lesser scale than people who have not received that training.

Absolutely, and every time they **** up (which they inevitably will) they should get suspended, investigated, fined, fired or incarcerated depending on their degree of negligence. Cops should not be allowed to be incompetent, they simply should not. Normal people don't have the right to barge into your home with guns and shoot your dog. These guys do. Thusly, they have to be held to unbelievably high standards. They cannot be allowed to **** up.
 
But no matter the occupation or training, you have to accept that, like everybody else, police officers are human and therefore capable of poor judgment, although on a lesser scale than people who have not received that training. Your expectation of near-perfect judgment is not realistic.

"it's ok because they're human and humans make mistakes"



ok. sounds like you're making excuses for their behaviour



Maestro said:
You've been in their shoes (or any similarly dangerous situation) how many times? When you're a SWAT officer there's an expectation that what's on the other side of that door could be armed with anything short of a tactical nuke. If they thought a SWAT team was necessary in the first place then they were likely expecting heavy resistance to begin with.

I find it funny that you accuse people of not knowing the situation when it's clear you dont either. first of all every single arrest warrent that neccesitates a raid is handled by swat. every single one. do you really think uniformed cops just walk up to doors of wanted criminals and simply knock? a friend of mine is a police officer and he said arrest warrents are always executed in the early hours of the morning because the person behind the door is most likely to be sleeping and is less likely to resist in a groggy state. if the whole idea is to take them by surprise why/how would they be "expecting heavy resistance"

it's obvious you are biased in favour of police and not just these police but all police in general; blind bias that leaves no room for any wrong doing. in this respect your opinion is worth squat
 
I was only offering an alternate hypothesis, since most of you seem to have gotten "the cops are at fault and are scum of the earth" point of view across already. I never said that there was no possibility for them to be the assholes some of you think them to be- of course it's possible.

Also, I didn't make that second quote, please take my name off of it.

For the rest of you, I also never said they shouldn't be punished, reprimanded, or reviewed for their actions. I only offered a possible explanation for them.
 
I was only offering an alternate hypothesis, since most of you seem to have gotten "the cops are at fault and are scum of the earth" point of view across already. I never said that there was no possibility for them to be the assholes some of you think them to be- of course it's possible.

but unlikely ..there's always some explanation, some justification. it's never as it seems, it's always worse than it appears and you have to understand the level of stress they're under and sometimes accidents happen etc etc

but they're the good guys!!!
 
but unlikely ..there's always some explanation, some justification. it's never as it seems, it's always worse than it appears and you have to understand the level of stress they're under and sometimes accidents happen etc etc

but they're the good guys!!!

Not always, but they aren't the bad guys as frequently as they're made ou to be either. You can't generalize a group that large.
 
Not always, but they aren't the bad guys as frequently as they're made ou to be either. You can't generalize a group that large.

you seem to be perfectly capable of doing it. really I dont even know why these police in particular are representative of the whole, in either a good or bad way. you're just as guilty as those who make it sound like police in general are the "bad guys"
 
This is like Waco, minus the dogs and the 50 day stand-off.

Speaking of Waco...read the wiki. It's amazing how a phone call could have prevented such chaos.
 
you seem to be perfectly capable of doing it. really I dont even know why these police in particular are representative of the whole, in either a good or bad way. you're just as guilty as those who make it sound like police in general are the "bad guys"

Such as yourself? Did you even read my posts? Or are you conveniently ignoring the parts that answer your question?
 
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