Cleveland Police chase water ballooners, shoot dog.

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Police shoot dog during backyard chase
Posted by Leila Atassi April 29, 2007 21:18PM
Categories: Breaking News, Crime

A Garfield Heights police officer shot a chained-up watchdog that lunged at him as he chased a group of kids through backyards, a police spokesman said.

Police responded to a call to Turney and McCracken roads around 6:30 p.m. today for a complaint about a group of kids throwing water balloons at cars.

When police arrived, the kids ran and the officer chased them.

In one yard, a large watchdog, chained to a back porch, lunged at the officer. The officer shot the dog.

The dog survived and was taken to a pet hospital for treatment.

The officer, who police did not identify, was not hurt.

The police investigation is continuing.
 
I dunno... I need more details about this before I comment on the LEO's shoot either way. But on the surface I'm not sure if I would have acted differently if suddenly confronted with a charging, snarling guard dog.

As for the kids... they were endangering the lives of motorists by throwing things at moving cars, which I assume is against the law, and then running from the police who came to stop them.

Perhaps the kids need to be made responsible for what happened to the dog too... if they hadn't run the cop wouldn't have chased them into the yard and the dog wouldn't have been shot.
 
I have never been nailed by a water balloon. Good on the kids to be doing something other than American Idol or XBox. :D
 
I have never been nailed by a water balloon. Good on the kids to be doing something other than American Idol or XBox.
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Nope. Water balloons can damage moving vehicles. Back in the early 1980s my father was driving one of the EPA's survey trucks through Niagara N.Y. when some kids dropped a water balloon from an overpass. Caved in the entire windshield of the truck.

Bad on the kids for their vandalist behavior. :mad:

Bad on the cop for shooting a restrained dog in its own yard. :mad:
 
Officer's first mistake was actually getting out of his car to chase some kids for throwing water balloons. It would have been more fun to drive around the neighborhood and play spotlight tag with 'em. Another case of "Zero Tolerance of Waterballooning" Sorry, but that leo ain't got no sensayuma.
 
So this officer was running through the yard chasing the criminals when he came upon a dog that snarled at him. This dog was chained up and protective of its own yard which the officer trampled through in the course of his duties. So the officer sees the snarling beast and opens fire wounding it so that he could pursue the criminals. Does that sound about right?

People the animal was chained up in its own yard.
 
seriously the dog was chained. and if it was a "reflex" shooting, WHY THE HELL DOES THE COP HAVE HIS GUN OUT FOR KIDS WITH WATER BALOONS!!!!
 
There are water ballons and then there are water ballons-all of them are not created equal. I was hit by one dropped from a overpass. It fortunately hit on the passengers side and there was no one with me. It broke my windshield and I almost wrecked the car. Ended up with just a broken windshield and a wet front seat. This does not sound like the same thing, but they can be dangerous!!
 
With this degree of stupidity behind that individual's badge, it is a good thing that the Cleveland Clinic is located there. I am confident that in the near future the Clinic will have to put some humanoids back together again! He really shot a chained-up dog?
 
And LEO wonder why we bust em in the chops constantly. If this kind of crap didn't happen on a regular basis they would have a lot more credibility with the public for those incidents when their acts were truly marginal and get the benefit of the doubt. Instead this kind of crap happens. And true to form honest rational citizens are forced to wonder if perhaps we have crossed the line somewhere and the faithful servant in blue has now become
a Frankensteins monster to be feared, loathed and ultimately destroyed.

LEO either does not understand or really does not care. They only get X amount of brownie points or demeritscredited to their "bank of public trust". Use em up on senseless, moronic acts like this and they are gone when they are really needed.
 
seriously the dog was chained. and if it was a "reflex" shooting, WHY THE HELL DOES THE COP HAVE HIS GUN OUT FOR KIDS WITH WATER BALOONS!!!!
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Exactly.

Either way, it's hard to imagine this as a "good shoot."

Anyone want to guess how big and ferocious the "guard dog" really was?
 
I don't care if it's a damned English Mastiff, it was chained up.

Biker
 
I don't care if it's a damned English Mastiff, it was chained up.

Biker
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Agreed.

And whether it was a slow and deliberate shooting of a chained dog on private property, or the cop had his gun out, either way, it was really BAD behavior.

Still, I'm thinking miniature schnauzer or something.

Cleveland is, well, Cleveland.
 
GARFIELD HEIGHTS, Ohio -- A dog is recovering after being shot by a police officer in Garfield Heights.

The shooting happened on Sunday.

Police said the officer was forced to shoot when the dog threatened his safety, but some neighbors said it is not true.

Officers said they arrived on Turney Road because a driver said he had been hit in the face with a water balloon.

When a police officer walked up a driveway to investigate, he said a dog, named Haley, lunged at him. Haley was leashed.

Haley's owner said his trust in police is shaken.

"He said, I thought someone came back here as a suspect.' " said Mark Orahoske, the dog's owner. "A suspect for what, a water ballon? I mean -- I don't understand this. This is ridiculous."

Police continue to investigate the water balloon incident. The shooting of the dog is not under investigation because officials said the officer said the dog lunged at him.

Haley was taken to an animal clinic and she is expected to recover.
Click to expand...

From Gunsmith's linky

If a civvie shot a K-9 unit that "lunged" at them wouldn't they be charged with assaulting a police officer?
 
1. Chasing them on foot was, by any rational standard, perfectly ok, assuming there was an underlying arrestable offense (vandalism, trespass, etc). There might be some local policy that forbids it, or state case law, but generally if you run from the police on foot, you're going to be chased. Imagine the outrage if YOU called the cops (someone did!) and they showed up and went "Eh, they left. I'm not gonna run after them. So, yeah. Bye."

2. Shooting the dog, while hardly a great day at work, is similarly OK, PROVIDED the cop had no idea the dog was chained up and could not reach him, AND the dog was reasonably able to cause serious injury. I'm sorry (and I mean that genuinely, not sarcastically), but I am not allowing Cujo to munch on my buttocks while I make 100% sure that he is unrestrained.

Would I try to escape first? Yes. Would I try to see if he is restrained? Yes. Would I feel genuinely bad about having to do it? Absolutely. Would I expect my department to buy the homeowner a new dog? Yes (Mine would, too). But if I end up in the yard in the line of duty, a huge dog attacks me and I cannot determine that he's chained and I don't think I can get out? I'm breaking leather and shooting the dog.

Remember that he didn;t need to have his gun in hand when it started to shoot the dog (how long does it take you to draw?), and also remember that it probably happened in a dark yard. Edit: 6:30P-7PM, so not dark, but it's still not clear how well the leash/chain could be seen. If you go to the link, you can see that it is a good-sized dog. Certainly not a miniature poodle

I have seen first hand what a medium sized dog can do to a human being. I'm not allowing it to happen to me. I'm sorry (and I mean that), I'm not.

Mike
 
If some LEO chasing punk waterballooners comes traipsing through my yard and shoots my penned-up dog... there will be hell to pay.

I value the lives of my animals more than the lives of most people. Shooting a beloved and restrained pet on private property is likely to trigger a HULK SMASH moment.
 
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