Memphis Commercial Appeal
MEMPHIS, Tenn. — A raised baton is often all a police officer needs to give a menacing dog second thoughts about attacking, an official with the ASPCA said Friday.
Properly trained officers rarely need to use lethal force against a pet, said Randall Lockwood, a vice president with the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in Washington.
“In 99 percent of encounters, simply having the baton in the hand is enough to get the dog to back off,” Lockwood said a day after two Memphis police officers shot at two charging dogs behind a house in High Point Terrace after responding to a burglar alarm.
One of the dogs, a yellow Lab mix named Bing, was treated for a gunshot wound and was back home Friday afternoon. The other, a black Lab mix named Violet, ran off after the shooting and is still missing.
Officers weren’t sure whether Violet was shot.
The Memphis Police Department is among the few departments in the nation that has use-of-force guidelines regarding animals, said Lockwood, who trained MPD officers in 2003.
Generally, the guidelines allow officers to use only as much force as is necessary to control the situation, he said.
“Some basic training in how to read dogs and what (officers’) options for response might be could have prevented this,” he said.
An MPD spokeswoman said the department’s officers are trained and the ones at the scene Thursday had little time to react when the dogs charged.
“If it’s the only option, they’re going to defend themselves,” said spokeswoman Karen Rudolph. “It all boils down to what you’ve got an opportunity to do,” she said, adding that sometimes there’s not time to back away.
The shooting provoked community outrage and a number of comments to the article on The Commercial Appeal’s Web site.
Some wondered whether the officers could have used pepper spray, which Rudolph said is an option.
“If (an officer) has time to pull his pepper spray and pepper spray a dog to see if it’s going to work, then yes,” she said.
Lockwood estimated pepper spray is effective “95 percent” of the time. He also said a sharp verbal command often does the trick.
The officers checked the house in the 200 block of Eastland on Thursday for signs of a break-in, then went into the backyard, Rudolph said.
They started to back out of the yard when they noticed a dog door, as they’re trained to do. That’s when Violet and Bing charged, she said.
The dogs’ owner, Anna Bolton, said they’d never bitten anyone.
“My dogs would run toward them barking, but any dog in their territory would do that,” she said.
She was also unhappy that police didn’t immediately tell her about the shooting.
The Police Department is investigating the incident.
Lockwood said officers should be prepared to encounter dogs since they’re present in one-third of U.S. homes. He also said cities face a liability issue when officers use lethal force against pets.
“We have seen judgments against police departments approaching a million dollars for wrongful shootings of animals,” he said. “It’s an image problem and can be a financial problem.”
The MPD released figures Friday that show its officers have shot at dogs 48 times this year. Thirteen of the animals were killed, four were critically injured, 11 were injured superficially and 20 weren’t hit.
Also, 10 officers have been bitten by dogs this year.
Officers have answered more than 4,000 burglar-alarm calls this month alone, Rudolph said, and they approach each scene never knowing what they’re going to find.
“The incident ... was not something that was planned out,” she said in a statement e-mailed late Thursday. “It was not a malicious act. The officers were at that location to do their job.”
Safe at home
The Memphis Police Department said homeowners can take several steps to protect their pets:
Post a “Beware of Dog” or “Dog on Property” sign on fences and windows.
Make sure alarm companies know about dogs so they can warn police.
Secure all locks on gates.
Violet’s owner reports extortion try
The owner of a dog that has been missing since a police shooting Thursday said Friday morning that someone tried to extort money from her in return for the dog.
Details
Anna Bolton said she got text messages at about 7:30 a.m. from someone who claimed to have her black Lab mix named Violet.
Bolton said she called the number the texts came from and the person who answered told her a friend had the dog and that Bolton would have to pay to get her back.
Bolton contacted police, who are investigating.
Copyright 2009 Commercial Appeal