video: swat team shoots dog in front of child

[Bible_Belt]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RbwSwvUaRqc&feature=player_embedded

They found a few grams of pot and a pipe, after raiding his house and shooting his two dogs in front of his wife and seven-year-old kid. Curiously, Columbia Missouri recently made marijuana possession a ticketable offense only, the lowest level of crime.

Swat teams shoot dogs all the time. But this time it was put on youtube for a million people to see. The guy could sue, but he'd spend thousands on an attorney, and in the unlikely event he actually won, the police department would only be liable for the cost of a new dog.

 

[Strelok]

The police finest men,yeah now i feel myself protected...
I cant blame the americans who buy a gun to defend themselves cause they dont trust the efficency of the police.
Btw it's not the first time i read about facts like this one.

And i wonder how is going to grow up that poor kid that saw a police men killing his dog without any reasonable reason,he will for sure respect authority and law...

 

[mikeyb]

Don't sound like the police's finest men to me...just your good old average trigger happy cops. What's even more surprising is that they would do this on camera, assuming of course that the video is real.

 

[5string]

I looked at this. Lets see now. The suspect was also charged with child endangerment. How bout the cops shootin their MP5's within just a few feet of a seven year old child when they killed the dogs? NOW THAT, seems like child endangerment to me!

 

[wait_out]

From comments at The Economist.

The warrant authorizing SWAT and investigators to enter Whitworth’s home was approved by Boone County Associate Circuit Judge Leslie Schneider on Feb 3., and the raid happened Feb. 11.

Investigators were working with intelligence from two informants that claimed Whitworth had a large amount of high-grade marijuana at his residence, according to the warrant, which also noted that Whitworth had a prior arrest for suspicion of possession of marijuana and manufacturing a controlled substance. One of the informants told police he or she had seen the marijuana in Whitworth’s home within 10 days of the warrant’s approval.

Columbia police Detective Ronald Hall Jr. also conducted a trash grab at Whitworth’s home on Jan. 27. He found baggies containing narcotic residue and items of drug paraphernalia with residue on them, according to the warrant.

So when SWAT entered the home, investigators believed Whitworth was in possession of a large amount of marijuana and was considered a distributor. SWAT is used when executing warrants on distributors because they often have a history with firearms.

Thus, it seems as if the problem with the execution of the search warrant is the lapse in time between approval (Feb 3) and execution (Feb 11). Eight days was probably too long to wait -- there was plenty of time for the suspect to finish his job and move his product out of the house. The reason for the delay is apparently that the SWAT team in Columbia is actually a collateral duty for their patrol officers, and not a full time position in and of itself, and so it took longer to coordinate schedules and assemble a full team than it would in a larger urban area like New York or Los Angeles, which has a separate full-time SWAT unit and could have executed the warrant the same day as it was issued.

Ok now this makes sense. You have a half-assed SWAT team that doesn't train enough to be professional and confident, psyching themselves out for over a week practicing their drills in anticipation of a running gunfight with Pablo Escobar, then finally breaking into a house to serve a search warrant off cold information that probably wasn't properly vetted anyway. To add insult to injury, when they were shooting the pitbull... they missed. And now they're getting national attention for being thugs over youtube. No meaningful arrests made.

NICE WORK BOYS

If you still wonder why these guys suck... http://www.policeone.com/patrol-iss...lections-vs-qualifications-training-for-SWAT/

 

[ArcBound]

Well some dogs start defending their owners especially when their owner is forcefully put on the ground, cause that's what dogs do and what earned them the man's best friend reputation. It's not like you can calmly talk to a dog telling it that its owner is under arrest and to stand down, so when it starts barking like crazy you put it down before it attacks you:

"The department's police chief is defending the officers, saying the pit bull was acting aggressively. The other dog is a corgi and lived. The chief notes they're reviewing their policies on raids because of the raid."

I don't know why they shot the corgi, but you heard the pit bull barking like crazy in the video and pitbulls are freaking strong and if you ever had one you know they don't back down from anyone.

 

[user43770]

All this over pot? These cops need to get real jobs.

Cops enforce the law, they don't make it.

 

[Nygard]

Can my country have your police for ours? It's no big deal. I assure you they won't shoot a dog in front of a kid, and maybe you don't mind that they're friends with the criminals, sell coke and run from thugs.

 

[teagan]

Nazi concentration camp guards were just following orders too...

Godwin's law...cops and SS-Totenkopfverbände are incomparable.

 

[penkitten]

poor kid! finds out parents are potheads and watches the police murder his best friend all at the same time.
if i were this kid, i'd pack up and go to grandma's!!
but seriously, this was a very tragic event for a 7 year old to behold.

 

[user43770]

Nazi concentration camp guards were just following orders too...

That's what we call a slippery slope argument, Kerpal. Here are some facts: marijuana is illegal; If you sell marijuana, the SWAT team might bust in your door and shoot your dogs. Don't like it? Too bad - cops are going to keep busting drug dealers.

If your job involves the possibility of a SWAT team busting into your house and shooting up the place, maybe you should get another job.

 

[user43770]

But not an invalid one.

Yes it is. You implied that cops busting drug dealers is going to lead to genocide - that's invalid.

My point is that the drug war is leading to all kinds of increased police powers, and not just targeted to drug dealers.

I don't know what you're talking about. Please elaborate on these special powers that police use on innocent civilians. And if you're referring to the Patriot Act then you're in the wrong thread.

All this over pot? These cops need to get real jobs.

See, I thought your argument was that cops are useless, but you were going way deeper than that, huh?

 

[bigjohnson]

Yes it is. You implied that cops busting drug dealers is going to lead to genocide - that's invalid.

It's widely identified as "the slippery slope fallacy", as in "logical fallacy", as in, not an argument.

 

[bigjohnson]

Slippery slope arguments are not necessarily fallacious unless the premises are unsupported.

"Slippery slope arguments falsely assume that one thing must lead to another. They begin by suggesting that if we do one thing then that will lead to another, and before we know it we’ll be doing something that we don’t want to do. They conclude that we therefore shouldn’t do the first thing. The problem with these arguments is that it is possible to do the first thing that they mention without going on to do the other things; restraint is possible."

http://www.logicalfallacies.info/presumption/slippery-slope/


So the appropriate question is, do you seriously think the citizens of America will be engaged in genocide soon because some cops shot a dog?



EDIT:

For what it's worth, I think the "war on drugs" is misguided at best and that prohibition never works, but I also believe it's the duty of citizens to obey laws, at least those which are moral. "Not smoking pot" does not preclude one from leading a moral life. The law should be obeyed.

 

[Alle_Gory]

at least those which are moral. "Not smoking pot" does not preclude one from leading a moral life. The law should be obeyed.

It's not moral, is it? Smoking pot is a victimless "crime". It's like smoking but without side effects like second hand smoke. It only affects the user, and the effects aren't even that drastic or lasting long term.

 

[bigjohnson]

Strawman

Wrong

Nazi concentration camp guards were just following orders too...

I disagree.

Congrats on being wrong twice. We can't have an orderly society if every person gets to individually decide what to obey and what to not obey based on their personal world view.

.... we should first ask "Should this be a law?".

Sort of moving outside the scope, as I said, effecting change via legal means is a different thing, that's the political process.

 

[speakeasy]

The dog shooting does bring up a question though. How are SWAT teams to deal with hostile dogs like pit bulls during a raid? This is something I never thought about, but yeah, most people have dogs, and if they have to raid a house, a big powerful dog is going to go berserk seeing a group of people crash through the front door.

 

[bigjohnson]

The dog shooting does bring up a question though. How are SWAT teams to deal with hostile dogs like pit bulls during a raid? This is something I never thought about, but yeah, most people have dogs, and if they have to raid a house, a big powerful dog is going to go berserk seeing a group of people crash through the front door.

That whole scenario just sucks because it's a terrible outcome without any obvious (to me) solution. I've already said I think the vast majority of our laws, including the prohibition type ones, are a waste of time, but until they are abolished the police are duty bound to enforce those laws.

I do think it's borderline idiotic to have a big dog in the city where it has to essentially live indoors with people, but a lot of people do that. A lot of people are pretty dumb.

 

[Alle_Gory]

That whole scenario just sucks because it's a terrible outcome without any obvious (to me) solution. I've already said I think the vast majority of our laws, including the prohibition type ones, are a waste of time, but until they are abolished the police are duty bound to enforce those laws.

I do think it's borderline idiotic to have a big dog in the city where it has to essentially live indoors with people, but a lot of people do that. A lot of people are pretty dumb.

The guy had a corgi and a pit bull (in a cage).

This is a corgi: http://www.petsplace.co.za/Corgi_Toby.jpg

 

[bigjohnson]

The guy had a corgi and a pit bull (in a cage).

This is a corgi: http://www.petsplace.co.za/Corgi_Toby.jpg

According to the news reports he had a Corgi (ya, so what) and a Pitbull which was restrained in the kitchen; I suspect it was probably gated off with one of those child doors. A lot of people use them, I have for training purposes, and I doubt anyone has a full on chain link kennel in their suburban kitchen. It's not a really secure 'cage'.

I won't have a dog unless I'm in a place with at least 5 acres so they can have a good place to run, but yes I love dogs and when I'm living in those conditions I've always had them.