Sunday, March 22, 2009

Most likely the pit bull?

It's 2 am on a Saturday in Denton, TX. You're a police officer on a "disturbance" call when two dogs approach. One is maybe, possibly a pit bull, the other is unknown. Both are running towards you. What do you do?

Well, if you this officer, you grab your pepper spray, rethink that plan, and then bust out your handgun and shoot at the dogs.

I can only you hope you don't do what this officer did (in a residential area with at least one person nearby trying to call the dogs). And I can only hope you don't describe the shooting in this way: "the officer fired his weapon at the closest dog, most likely the pit bull, he said."

Imagine, for one moment, if this language was used to describe other police shootings. "Oh, well, I just shot at the guy running closest to me, most likely the criminal."

I know, silly right?

I guess I just expect police officers to, at the very least, know who they are aiming at. I'll hope that the officer's statements were taken out of context and he didn't just randomly shoot at dogs, then pin the blame on the stereotypical scapegoat breed.

I'll also hope the owner of these dogs, who animal control had been called about earlier in the day, either has his dogs removed or becomes enlightened with Common Sense and properly restrains his dogs. It isn't hard to do and it will help avoid situations like this.

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