This is fairly ugly quoting, but hopefully it's understandable enough.
Okay, Joab. I'll try this one. Please excuse my sloppiness. I went off on a tangent with ArmedBear, but kept the assumption of the original post, which was that you were being attacked. (Oops. My assumption is that there was an attack. It doesn't explicitely state that in the original post. I think that may be where the contention lies.)
From the original post:
"i as wondering what the legalities of the options are if you were walking down your neighborhood street (i was in tacoma) and a pitbull jumped out of the yard and begun to run after you."
"what if i had no way out?"
So, two assumptions to start with. I'm on a city street, and I'm not capable of escaping. Whether I can't get away because I'm tired, or injured, or have a small child with me doesn't really matter. The two essential points, as I saw the original post, were that you were on a public street and not capable of running away.
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Let's look at the laws... Section 62.669 RESTRAINT OF DOGS REQUIRED
"Any person owning or having custody or control of a dog shall at all times prevent the dog from being "At Large," and from being in violation of other provisions of law."
Oops! Gee, guess what? If your dog gets loose, *you* are breaking the law.
Oops you forgot to post the part of the law thats says being unleashed is a death sentence for the animal instead of a fine for the owner
I didn't think that was what I was saying. My point was that ArmedBear seemed to believe that the dog owner was in the right and perfectly justified in letting his dog run free, and that made it my responsibility to know his dog's intentions. I was merely pointing out that the whole reason this situation exists in the first place is because of a failure of the dog owner to control their dog. He tries to put the blame on the person in the street with "If you can't ride faster than a dog... then perhaps you should sell your mountain bike." So he's going to dictate that I don't have a right to be in the street unless I can maintain a certain speed? And then later says "Get educated, or get along down the street." which implies to me, that again he is placing blame on the attacked individual. Apparently people have an obligation to know and study dog psychology.
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62.669.1 - "Any person owning or having custody or control of a dog shall at all times prevent the dog from attacking, biting, or otherwise causing injury to any person..."
Oops again! "attacking" is the key word here. If your dog is dead in the street, where it was not supposed to be in the first place, and the person who killed it claims it was attacking them, how do you think that's going to look in court?
Oops again you forgot to read the part of the post that you quoted that says
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the dog had just happened by and not hurt anything or anyone,
But you could always lie to get off, criminals do it all the time
Actually, I did forget to read it. Now I'm looking at it, and it appears to be about something totally different; the difference between a dog killing livestock, and a dog minding its own business. Neither of which are scenarios posed by the original poster. And neither of which I was talking about.
My point is that when the cop shows up, there is going to be a dead dog in the street, a pissed off owner somewhere, and a person who is claiming that they were attacked by the dog. When this whole mess gets to court, unless there are witnesses or video of the event, it's going to be the word of the owner against the word of the shooter. "My dog has never run after anyone before" isn't going to hold up very well in court when the dead animal is laying in the middle of the street, far away from your property line.
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Oh look! Another relevant law: 62.676 CAPTURE OF ANIMALS AT LARGE. Check this part out: "The finder of the animal "At Large" shall use reasonable care to preserve it from injury; however, he/she shall not be held liable if the animal dies, escapes or injures itself while he/she is carrying out the provisions of this section."
Shall not be held liable if the animal dies. Get it? "I was trying to pick up this stray dog to protect it from traffic, but it attacked me and I was forced to kill it to protect myself."
Oh look you forgot to take that reading comprehension class. Where does it say that you can purposely cause the animals death and not be held accountable
It doesn't there. But if the dog were attacking me, I would be justified in defending myself. Again, see the original post for context. I shouldn't have thrown this in at all, as it's fairly irrelevant. It was a bad point, and I was wrong to put it in.
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So in reality, if you were to let your dog get loose and it ran out into the road and I thought it was going to attack me, and I killed it... you would be breaking the law, and you quite possibly would end up with charges against you. I would be unlikely to be arrested for anything.
Could you post the statute that allows one crime to nullify another?
Remember the quote from the comment that you posted
Could you post the statue that says I can't defend myself from a stray dog that's attacking me? Because I'm pretty sure it doesn't exist.
Which means that if you shoot the dog who is not attacking or causing harm to get off you would have to commit the crime of purgery or providing false information.
Which by your read of the laws would nullify any infractions committed by the owner of the dog
Yes, that would be true. If were were talking about a dog that wasn't causing harm. But I think we're talking about two different things. The original poster doesn't say "then the dog attacks you; what do you do". The original post says that a dog's coming at you, and the title says "so you shot a dog...now what?" I drew a line between those two items, and made the assumption that there was an actual attack. If the dog had turned around and gone home, there would have been no reason to shoot it. Because of the "so you shot a dog" part, I made the assumption that there was an attack. That's totally not clear. So there are two possible scenarios. The dog attacks, or it doesn't. If the dog doesn't attack, then of course you don't have any right to shoot it. If the dog does, then you do. My whole arguement stems from the assumption that the dog actually attacks. If, in fact, we're assuming something difference, then everything I said falls apart and doesn't apply.
I will go to the trouble of getting a breed dog that is friendly to a shelter, or to another owner, despite my past experience, because I know they'll be unlikely to be euthanized. I didn't feel responsible though to go out of my way to get this particular dog back to this particular owner, because he'll likely go to an owner that is more responsible.
