Police Shoot Dog in California

It's all over the news sites now; a police officer, in California, shot, and killed, a man's dog while the man was being arrested.

The thing is, pretty much all of the sites of seen it on have been critical of the officer's handling of the situation. I don't believe that's correct.

I won't link the video, because it is brutal and disturbing, and to be honestI don't want to be doing with that. It is easy enough to find in various formats on youtube though.

Before we look at the video, let's have a little background; the dog in question is a Rottweiler, these dogs are known to be strong and have a great capacity for causing harm - sure, a well trained Rottweiler is as passive as any other dog, until the owner is under threat, like with any other dog. Rottweilers, however, are built to be lethal, unlike a lot of other dogs, when they bite, they lock on, their muscles are increbibly powerful, and their teeth deadly and sharp. Make no mistake, a Rottweiler is a lethal animal.

So, back to Sunday's scene in California; at least four squad cars at a police incident, later we're told it was an armed robbery, and Leon Roseby walks past, with his dog, and makes an absolute show of filming the incident in progress while shouting very loudly about making sure no one's civil liberties are violated. This was, is, and always will be, a damned stupid thing to do because whatever else it may achieve, it guarantees aggrevation of the police and is clearly going to goad them in to action of some sort.

He puts his dog in the car (the windows are rolled right down) and approached the police who are walking towards him, and offers himself for arrest. This is also dumb - the police didn't even have cuffs out until a few seconds after they got to him.

This is where it all really starts to unravel for the poor dog. Seeing it's owner in trouble it does what any loyal dog would do, it goes to it's owner's aid. A lot of shouting is never going to calm a dog down, the dog won't let the police near itself or it's owner. All credit to the police here - they clearly do what they can in the situation and show a lot of restraint. Why do I say that? The dog lunged at the officer twice, and the officer didn't shoot it on the first lunge.

Anyone who's had a dog of that size and fabled ferocity go for them will know how pant-wettingly terrifying that is; it's all bark, and teeth and slobber and coming for you, and th epolice officer here tried to calm the dog not shoot it on the first  lunge.
Second time around he had no choice because he'd already tried peaceful means.

Why did he shoot it four times? To be humane to the animal. It was clear that the first bullet didn't kill it outright, so maybe he saw it was the humane thing to finish it off, or maybe he wanted to make sure that a wounded and enraged animal didnt make a third lunge. Don't mistake the the second, third and fourth shots as overzealousness, they were needed.

Leon Roseby is now looking to sue the police for killing his dog. I hope to heck he fails. He engineered the situation in which his dog died. It's come out that the police had asked him to turn down the music in his car as it was interfering with their operation, he said he was complying. I have to say I can see no compliance of that nature in the video; he goes to the car ... puts the dog in it, but doesn't secure the dog, doesn't make an effort to turn down the music, then leaves the car to go to the police.

He could have avoided this outcome at a number of junctures, but he didn't. He only has himself to blame here; he goaded the police, he did not comply with their request to turn his music down, he did NOT secure his dog in the car.

It seems that two investigations are now ongoing in relation to that incident; one investigating Roseby for interferring with a plice scene, and another for the police officer shooting the dog.

I hope the police officers in question are cleared of any wrong doing.