Lazy8 wrote: 
Thank you.

katzendogs wrote:
Actually, what started it was somebody calling the police about two dogs running loose with no leashes. Just sayin'.

 katzendogs wrote: 
My boss' dogs (Yellow labs), the older female especially, are extremely intimidating when behind a closed door or gate. He put up a gate in the office to keep them from going out and sniffing customers' crotches, but now they stand at the gate and froth and lather and you better believe they are scary. Leave the gate open and they're just normal labs.
 
I'm not joking at all. I know those dogs and when I go to their house and knock, they hit the door snarling, get a whack from the shock collar maybe, or at least grabbed by the collar, and then I go in. Once I'm in they're all dopey hey sniff hey hey sniff. Boss' brother-in-law walked in unannounced one day and got bit on the ass and it was a real chomp... no injury (classic case of ripped pants, the dog got his wallet). If it had been anyone else, the dog would have had to be put down. He is a very conscientious dog owner, too. Works with them a lot, has professional trainers work with them and him and they're great bird dogs. The older one is just wired different, and it's rubbing off some on the new pup, who's not related at all (bought from out of state just to avoid the gene pool around here).

katzendogs wrote:
Most retrievers are gentle dogs, but their antics could easily be mistaken for aggression. Most have an instinctive need to greet people with something in their mouths, and if they can't find something they'll grab at your sleeve or your shoe. Very mouthy dogs.This takes a lot of training to get around.

What I saw in the dashcam was typical playful behavior aggravated by the cop's hostility. They probably took the kick as a desire for roughhouse play. If they had meant to attack it would have been unambiguous. The cop misread what he saw and escalated far beyond what he needed.

That said...they owners left their dogs out unsupervised in a public street. They aren't blameless, but the dog didn't deserve to die.

 katzendogs wrote: 
Me neither.

 Red_Dragon wrote: 
Re-reading the article I see the dog was a black lab. I trained black labs at FT Gordon Ga.,as a tracker dog handler at the time of Vietnam. There were some real aggressive dogs and some very leash shy dogs in that class. The aggressive's flunked out. But the most docile, friendly and loving were the one's I remember. I have never seen, in person or on the street seen an aggressive lab in my life. I'll stand by my statement. The cop started it.

 Lazy8 wrote: 
As I've stated previously, there are still decent cops out there. At the same time, I think their training and indoctrination has changed a lot in my lifetime. They used to be peace officers, now they're law-enforcement officers - not a semantic difference. My own, limited experience and the increase in reports of such behavior seem to me to indicate that the good cops are a smaller and smaller percentage with each year's retirements. So much of their funding/training/equipage is now tied to the federal government. The federal government sees terrorists behind every fire hydrant and exhibits less and less tolerance for those who question its authority. This attitude is finding its way into local "law-enforcement" at an alarming rate.

 katzendogs wrote: 
Exactly. The cop escalated the situation; as so many of them do. He then used excessive force (a firearm) to resolve it in his favor. I can name about a dozen ways he could have resolved that situation that don't involve anyone getting shot.

Red_Dragon wrote:
...because they not normal.

We've all met cops with attitude issues, in fact they are probably disproportionally represented in police-civilian encounters. The worse the attitude the more likely we are to meet them. That doesn't make this kind of assholery normal or representative of cops in general, and I doubt many of us (Raspy excepted) have much insight into what goes thru a cops mind on a daily basis.

 RichardPrins wrote: 
I do not know this site. Is it popular of just nitpicking through the police radio frequency's? i think the cop should have called animal control and let them decide the fate of the dog. You kick me and perhaps I will be irritated too. My two cents.

 Lazy8 wrote: 
The incidents demonstrative of the sort of attitude cc speaks of are almost daily reported in the news.

 Red_Dragon wrote: 
"I think a lot of this had to do with communication,"  

you think?

cc_rider wrote:
"They"? That's a mighty broad brush there, and a lot of extrapolating from one incident.

Red_Dragon wrote:
That's funny stuff right there. What a knucklehead.

Red_Dragon wrote:
33 cops killed in the line of duty in 2013. The lowest number in 50 some years, but you're right.

 RASPUTIN wrote: 
California

cc_rider wrote:
Where in the heck did THAT happen? Why in the world would you handcuff a fire fighter (EMT) at an accident scene?

 cc_rider wrote: 
ayup. us vs. them

Worth a watch...

 Lazy8 wrote:  They have also started handcuffing and detaining firefighters at the scene of an accident. With victims still on the ground. 

I think it has less to do with the specific training, but the overall attitude. Treat every single person (or animal) as a threat. Treat them as 'the enemy', and take absolute control of the situation, period. It's drilled into them in training: everybody you encounter could mean to do you harm.