How many wrongs does it take to get it right?

Well, here's a messed up story for the day from KSHB News.  Video here.

Apparently yesterday, police showed up at a man's (Jim Conaway) property to issue a warrant to a handiman that was doing repair work on the man's house.  While the police were serving the warrant, that man's dog, which he describes as a "Labrador Retriever Mix" (even though police and neighbors say the dog looked and acted like a "pit bull", whatever that means) became agitated, and broke his chain.  Police officers then shot the dog 5 times and killed it. 

The dog was then taken away by animal control -- who apparently had a good day yesterday and responded faster than their normal 4 hour response time.

The dog was taken to animal control, and incinerated.  The man made says he made several attempts to contact animal control so he could get his dog's remains back and pay his last respects, but animal control says they have no record of the calls and the dog was incinerated before he got a chance to get the dog back.

"The incinerator is fired up as soon as possible" said Animal Control Spokesperson Teresa Clark.  Those are never the words you want to hear from an animal control department that euthanizes kills 70% of the animals that enter the shelter.

Meanwhile, Conaway is upset that he was never contacted. Animal control says that because the dog wasn't wearing tags they didn't know who the owner was -- although Conaway points out that the dog was on killed on his property, so they actually knew where he lived and could have made an effort to communicate with him first. 

This whole event took place on the 3600 block of Roberts -- which should be noted is in a tougher area of town where the average HH income is about $25,000 and nearly 30% of the people that live in the zip code live below the poverty line.

Here are some of my thoughts/lessons from this little keystone cop episode:

1) Don't leave your dog chained up unsupervised. Not only does it tend to make the dog more aggressive but it leaves your dog vulnerable to strange situations that are beyond your control and could be harmed.

2) Having dogs that are around to protect your property (which Conoway admits that this one was)  is a recipe for a bad situation.  This is why I think (even though the research is incomplete) that high crime areas generally have higher dog attack incidences because people are using their dogs as security systems.

3) Hire reputable handymen.

4) Can we paleeesse train  police officers how to deal with dogs in a manner other than just shooting them?  Pretty please?  This dog was on his own property and the police officers were actually intruding there.  This is really unfair that this guy's dog got shot over this.  I'm seeing WAY too many police-shoot-dog stories these days that appear as if they could have been avoided.

5) Is compassion too much to ask for from animal control/police when they kill someone's dog to at least make an effort to contact the owner before the dog is incenerated?

6) If you're spokesperson for an animal control division -- one that has been under fire for killing too many animals of late -- you may want to watch your wording and not say "the incinerator is fired up as soon as possible".

7) Apparently any dog that is aggressive "looks and acts like a 'pit bull' according to neighbors and police, which is one of the many reasons breed ID issues are so rampant in news stories and these types of dogs are over-represented in press accounts. 

Comments

[katie]

what a disgusting story.

it sure seems like there've been a lot of "cop shoots dog on owner's property" stories lately.

[Social Mange]

I must admit, this story along with the incredibly callous comment about "firing up the incinerator" leave me with a very low opinion of Kansas City.

Rednecks fer daze, and frighteningly they're in positions of authority.

[Caveat]

Very depressing story all around.

They could say 'cremated' instead of 'incinerated', that would show a bit more sensitivity.

[Becky]

No comment on the chaining, I believe plenty of justice has already been done on chaining dogs. Well, sorry, nevermind, there's probably never enough...

Anyway, #4, #4, #4!!

This is an extremely scary story. Why are we left with no evidence, once again? KCMO does not run smoothly enough to pick up a dog and complete incineration in so short a time. No body? This sounds quite purposeful for KCMO. No record of this man's calls? This is preposterous!!

Shot 5 times?? A dog?? Isn't that a bit of overkill? I thought that police officers were held accountable every time they drew their guns? I'm not saying that they have no right to defend themselves against a charging, vicious dog. I'm saying that it seems this story was told and the mess cleaned up before anyone could even question it.

[Brent]

Becky, I couldn't agree more.

Social Mange, honestly, Kansas City is a pretty good place. There are a lot of really great people here. Unfortunately, not a lot of them seem to be in charge of much of running our city.

[s kennedy]

Let's see...if that had been a realllly good chain/collar, the dog would not have escaped? I think the early to rise incinerator was done purposely bec they knew they could get away with it. No way they don't know who/what they are incinerating. they know. #4--WAS the dog agitated, OR did they agitate it on purpose? In CA the hells angels case (san jose) involved swat team swooping down on mobile home dweller w/2 dogs in yard. dogs only barked and they killed both I think,then trashed entire place/yard. then got sued and victim won a pretty good sum, esp for property loss and dog killing. Can't remember the sum exactly, 900k or ?

[KC KS Kills Dogs]

S

The Hells Angels won 800k from the city of San Jose. The city was forced to settle because an appeals court ruled shooting the dogs violated constitutional protections against unreasonable search and seizure.

Also another jurisdiction Santa Clara Cty, Calif earlier paid about 990k to settle claims brought against the sheriff for the raids.

More police departments need to realize dogs are people's property and if they just go in with guns ablazing they can be sued.

[s kennedy]

The atty on one of those winning lawsuits did tell us that BSL ordinances are unconstitutional. In fact she laughed while saying it.

[Social Mange]

Brent, no doubt KC has good people just as Ontario has good people, a few idiots shouldn't tarnish the rest. Such a shame that the inmates seem to be running the asylum.

[learn to spell said...]

If you are going to be warriors arm yourselves with information, not suppositions.