The Pink Flamingo :: Why Are Cops Killing Dogs?

I've been following stories around the web about cops who make mistakes and barrage, storm trooper style, into homes, hold families at gun-point and end up killing the only one in the household who is protesting their presence - the family dog. James Joyner at Outside the Beltway reminded me about this. We are dealing with a slow news week. So - deal with it.

A few evenings ago cops raided a family home. Evidently it was the family's mistake because they dared to live at an address that was mistaken by cops to be a drug house. The cops had the wrong address. Anyway, the family boxer paid the ultimate price.

"...For 45 minutes the Myers were kept prisoner in their own home. "They wouldn't let me go to the bathroom which is like seven feet down the hall," said Frank Myers. "it was terrifying. I can't sit on my couch at night any more. I'm looking over my shoulder the whole time," said Pam Myers. The Myers say the deputies knew immediately they had raided the wrong home. They say it could have ended with an apology, until the couple heard two shots from the yard. "And I said, 'You just shot my dog," said Pam Myers, through tears. "I just wanted to go out and hold her a bit. They wouldn't even let me go out." The couple's five-year-old boxer Pearl was killed. The deputy says he feared for his life. They say the dog would bark but was no danger to the deputies. ABC 7/NewsChannel 8's Brad Bell reports that a search of court records shows a warrant for a suspected drug dealer who lives two doors away at 14610 Livingston Road. The address is clearly displayed on that house..."

Mistaken identity from 2003.

"..."Sir, inside information is that you was involved in some type of robbery in Davidson County," the unidentified officer says. Smoak and his wife protest incredulously, telling the officers that they are from South Carolina and that their mother and father-in-law are traveling in another car alongside them. The Smoaks told CNN that as they knelt, handcuffed, they pleaded with officers to close the doors of their car so their two dogs would not escape, but the officers did not heed them. Pamela Smoak is seen on the tape looking up at an officer, telling him slowly, "That dog is not mean. He won't hurt you." Her husband says, "I got a dog in the car. I don't want him to jump out."

The tape then shows the Smoak's 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.

An officer in a blue uniform aims his shotgun at the dog and fires at its head, killing it immediately.

For several moments, all that is audible are shrieks as the family reacts to the shooting. James Smoak even stands up, but officers pull him back down. "Y'all shot my dog! Y'all shot my dog!" James Smoak cries. "Oh my God! God Almighty!" "You shot my dog!" screams his wife, distraught and still handcuffed. "Why'd you kill our dog?" "Jesus, tell me, why did y'all shoot my dog?" James Smoak says. The officers bring him to the patrol car, and the family calms down, but still they ask the officers for an explanation. One of them says Patton was "going after" the officer. "No he wasn't, man," James Smoak says. "Y'all didn't have to kill the dog like that." Brandon told CNN Patton, was playful and gentle -- "like Scooby-Doo" -- and may have simply gone after the beam of the flashlight as he often did at home, when Brandon and the dog would play...."

There is a difference in killing a vicious dog who is trying to attack and harm someone, but when the dog is obviously the family pet, why? A person could get "life" if you kill a police dog, but police pay no price for killing a family pet. I gather only toy poodles like Rumsfeld are safe because any fool knows someone the size of Rums isn't going to hurt anyone, even a cat. According to the Cato Institute there are many botched police para-military raids per year in this country, then we hear that in Boston cops want the right to conduct warrantless searches.

This incident occurred in 2006. Coming from a family with treasured Saints, this one hurts. In 2006 Precious was murdered as he tried to flee raiding cops.

"...In an early morning "raid" the police broke down the door to the apartment of the woman and and her children. No attempt apparently was made to knock on the door and serve a search warrant. The owner of the apartment said: "I heard a big boom. My first reaction was to jump out of bed. We were trying to find where our kids were and all of a sudden we had guns in our faces." Now if you have followed the Cory Maye case you will know it is stupid tactics like this that get cops killed. If you are asleep in your bed and with no warning armed thugs burst through your door you first first instinct is to protect yourself. Shoot first and ask questions later. In this case the family was not armed however.

But how many dead cops do they want? Obviously they want more.

The family pet was executed. This has become routine with drug raids. Trigger happy cops wanting to kill something figure the dog is an easy target. In every single case they whine the dog was "aggressive" and "we had no choice." Over and over the same thing happens. Over and over the home owners, including people who had no drugs at all, say it is a lie and that the dog is usually fleeing in terror.

The evidence in this case is that the cops lied. Surprised? The dog was in the kitchen when these licensed killers took a shot at it. The dog was so terrified it urinated on the floor and ran after the first shot was taken. It ran into the bathroom to hide and the police pursued it and executed it there. A dog that is fleeing in terror is not aggressing by defintion. The only aggressive dogs were in uniform.

Elijah, the 11-year-old son says he awoke to find armed men pushing a shotgun into his face. "I punched at him. I didn't know who he was." Again the police lied. They claim they had "good reason" to pull guns on children. They said the house had weapons. None were found. A typical lie to cover up the fact that the police in America are out of control...."

NOT ONLY FAMILY PETS DIE

Unfortunately, not only family pets are the ones who end up being murdered during these raids. According to the Radley Balko, author of the Cato Institute paper, as many as 40 innocent people a year are also killed during the raids.

"...he botched Atlanta raid that ended in the shooting death of 88-year-old Kathryn Johnston was sad and tragic, but unfortunately, it was neither uncommon nor unpredictable.

After taking a year to research and write a paper for the Cato Institute on the proliferation of forced-entry, paramilitary-style raids, I'm sorry to say Johnston is just one of at least 40 innocent people killed in botched raids over the last 20 years in America. Worse, there are dozens more cases of low-level offenders, bystanders —- and police officers killed or injured.

In 2005, for example, Baltimore's Cheryl Lynn Noel, a mother and churchgoing woman, was shot to death when she mistook raiding police officers for intruders. She was holding a legal handgun when they kicked open her bedroom door. That raid was conducted after police investigators found marijuana seeds in the family trash. Last January, Fairfax, Va., optometrist Sal Culosi was accidentally shot and killed when a SWAT team apprehended him. He was under investigation for wagering on football games with a group of friends.

The Johnston raid isn't even the first such tragedy in Georgia. In 2000, Riverdale's Lynette Gayle Jackson called the police after her home had been invaded by burglars. While investigating the break-in, police found a small amount of cocaine that belonged to Jackson's boyfriend. A few weeks later, police raided Jackson's home, looking for her boyfriend. Jackson, understandably afraid after having been robbed less than a month earlier, was holding a gun when police entered her bedroom. The raiding officers opened fire and shot her to death...."