judalina wrote:

if someone were to shoot a police trained dog while being chased by it (because it is trained to attack on command) would they be reprimanded for their actions?

A civilian would be charged per what ever the town/city has listed as the offense. Many cities classify police dogs as officers so if you shoot or cause harm in any way to the police dog then you are committing a serious offense.

Regardless of everyone's opinions, something needs to be done either in protocol or in training to prevent this from happening and protect pets.

Personally I feel he should be reprimanded from the department. Not brushed off and forgotten. It was a mistake, sure. But that doesn't excuse it. A dog is dead.

There was an incident at another kennel where a fight broke out between some dogs. A dog was at the same time being held on a slip leash. It is my understanding that during the fight the person forgot about the dog on the leash and focused on breaking up the fight. The dog was choked by the leash, passed out, and technically died. They revived the dog but she was fired. It was a mistake, sure... but that's not an excuse. You need to be aware of what you're doing especially in a crisis or fast moving and changing situation. That's the last I'm going to say about this.

arooroomom wrote:

Regardless of everyone's opinions, something needs to be done either in protocol or in training to prevent this from happening and protect pets.

Personally I feel he should be reprimanded from the department. Not brushed off and forgotten. It was a mistake, sure. But that doesn't excuse it. A dog is dead.

There was an incident at another kennel where a fight broke out between some dogs. A dog was at the same time being held on a slip leash. It is my understanding that during the fight the person forgot about the dog on the leash and focused on breaking up the fight. The dog was choked by the leash, passed out, and technically died. They revived the dog but she was fired. It was a mistake, sure... but that's not an excuse. You need to be aware of what you're doing especially in a crisis or fast moving and changing situation. That's the last I'm going to say about this.

Kristina, I don't think that ANYONE has suggested that the officer in question should not be reprimanded. Everyone I have seen post including myself has agreed to that.

According to the chief of police, the officer and the incident is under investigation. Personally, I hope that he's suspended and forced to go through training again before he goes back into the field.

Again, no one has said that what the officer did was right. Just because I understand where he is coming from, does not mean that I agree with him or think that his actions were blameless. I said that he isn't the only one to blame and that he shouldn't be reprimanded for not verifying the address since THAT was not his fault.

From what I've heard, the police force stands behind the officer 100%, and he will not even get a slap on the wrist.

Domingo wrote:

From what I've heard, the police force stands behind the officer 100%, and he will not even get a slap on the wrist.

Not according to the interview I heard yesterday with the chief of police.

Koda wrote:

Domingo wrote:

From what I've heard, the police force stands behind the officer 100%, and he will not even get a slap on the wrist.

Not according to the interview I heard yesterday with the chief of police.

Sharing is caring Tori. Got a link?

I posted it yesterday

Koda wrote:

FTR: The chief of police called a radio show this morning and apologized.
http://www.klbjfm.com/podcasts/Episodes.aspx?PID=100
April 17- Pt 2
(fast forward to 42:30 or so when they start talking about the topic)

Also-- check out the youtube video of the guy took of the situation. That cop is remorseful. He shrugs in a "I don't know what to do" kind of way. He doesn't look like he has no remorse... he looks like a man who knows that he fucked up and doesn't know what to do about it.

ETA: It was advertised as "the cop" but it was actually the chief of police. The entire conversation is very well-moderated and controlled. I have to say, the radio announcer, Michael Paxton, and the chief of police all composed themselves very well and I have to say that I am impressed.

I just watched the dash cam video. I have to say the office fired within the firrst 30 seconds of being on the scene, that disturbs me. You can hear the dog just start barking and then the gunshot. I would say he didn't take the proper time to assertion the situation.

Lordbroll wrote:

I just watched the dash cam video. I have to say the office fired within the firrst 30 seconds of being on the scene, that disturbs me. You can hear the dog just start barking and then the gunshot. I would say he didn't take the proper time to assertion the situation.

I don't think anyone is arguing that

ETA: He shot within the first 4 seconds.

http://austin.ynn.com/content/top_stories/284248/apd-reviews-police-in-wake-of-dog-shooting

Officer Griffin has been pulled from his duties as a patrol officer for the time being.

cmanding wrote:

http://austin.ynn.com/content/top_stories/284248/apd-reviews-police-in-wake-of-dog-shooting

Officer Griffin has been pulled from his duties as a patrol officer for the time being.

AWESOME. I hope it truly affects positive change.

Highlights: Chief of Police quote: "Mr. Paxton, you know, through no fault of his own, was contacted by the police and clearly didn't understand what was going on and it resulted in the loss of his dog,” he said. “So if people have just a little bit of patience with us, we will get to the bottom of that and look and find out if our policy and training is sufficient."

cmanding wrote:

http://austin.ynn.com/content/top_stories/284248/apd-reviews-police-in-wake-of-dog-shooting

Officer Griffin has been pulled from his duties as a patrol officer for the time being.

VERY GOOD! I hope he gets reinstated soon, after he is properly trained to handle those situations.

Here4thePics wrote:

judalina wrote:

if someone were to shoot a police trained dog while being chased by it (because it is trained to attack on command) would they be reprimanded for their actions?

A civilian would be charged per what ever the town/city has listed as the offense. Many cities classify police dogs as officers so if you shoot or cause harm in any way to the police dog then you are committing a serious offense.

thanks len, that's what i figured. i e-mailed the chief of police and mentioned that argument - cops are given GSD's as puppies and raise them their entire lived and train them so they build a strong loyal bond between the K-9 certified dog and it's officer and here's his reply:

Thank you for your e-mail. We aren't ignoring the tragic death of Cisco the dog. We are conducting a comprehensive review of the incident to include the officer's actions, as well as our protocols/training and will report our findings to Mr. Paxton and the community we serve. On April 6, 2012, Good Friday, an Austin Police Officer was gunned down and murdered when he responded to a call of a “disturbance” at a Wal-Mart. This death had a profound impact on our officers, and part of our current on-going reviewing is what impact, if any, did this recent tragedy have on our officer in terms of how he approached this incident and how he responded: Did hyper-vigilance play a roll, are our training, response protocols and policy best practices, what did the responding officer do right, what did he do wrong, what corrective action, if any is warranted, and what are the lessons learned. These are a lot of questions that have to be thoroughly explored and we can not allow a mob mentality to influence our follow-up in this matter.

Again, all of these issues are being reviewed and our findings will be released. I am confident that as a result of Cisco’s death, some positive outcomes will result which will make it safer for our officers, the community we serve, and the pets we all love.

I have personally spoken to Mr. Paxton on more than one occasion and I publicly and privately expressed my condolences and apologized to him for the loss of his companion.

Please give us time to conduct a thorough and thoughtful review.

Sincerely,

ART ACEVEDO
Chief of Police
Austin Police Department

---------------------------------------------

i haven't responded yet because i haven't been up to date on what has been done/said so far.

If what he wrote is all true, I don't know if we could ask for anymore of ANYONE at this point in time. My fingers remain crossed that positive change truly does come out of Cisco's death.

Here is a link for a Yahoo! News article about this:

http://gma.yahoo.com/austin-police-chief-apologizes-shooting-cisco-dog-171215070--abc-news-topstories.html

They said that Mr. Paxton has gotten an apology now.

Two days ago in Dalhart. http://www.newschannel10.com/story/17519045/controversy

Lordbroll wrote:

Two days ago in Dalhart. http://www.newschannel10.com/story/17519045/controversy

That's pretty sad.

All I can say is that while these incidents are needless and unfortunate, we ARE only told of the incidents that end badly. We are never told when things are handled properly and safely.

this just makes me fucking hate cops that much more... that was unfair and my heart goes out to this poor guy. I mean, i know it might not mean much cuz i didn't know him or his dog, but i did add the petition to my facebook encouraging people to sign.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1196962/Police-dogs-die-left-car-temperature-soars-29C.html

lizzyduhh wrote:

this just makes me fucking hate cops that much more... that was unfair and my heart goes out to this poor guy. I mean, i know it might not mean much cuz i didn't know him or his dog, but i did add the petition to my facebook encouraging people to sign.

All cops are not created equal.

Seriously... we are only ever going to hear the bad stories. When does the news EVER report on routine things?

The news is never going to report on routine things, because that's not what the masses want to hear. The news is as sensationalized as possible to draw ratings. Even if you go read local news stories and they report something good or something a little more mundane, the comments are overwhelmingly things like "why is this news?".

I'm going to toss in my $.02 on the cop thing. This cop made a mistake, he acted without thinking, and it really does highlight a serious training issue with that (and probably most PD's). Does that make all cops bad? Absolutely not. I disagree with the "I fucking hate cops" sentiment, because those guys are out there putting their lives on the line every day for us. Yes, they get bad people in there, who abuse power and act rashly. Any uniformed service is going to draw people like that. A lot of them are weeded out in training, but people do get through. It's just like the military. We have people who go and do stupid things, like say shoot up an Afghan village in the middle of the night. Does that make us all evil, bloodthirsty killers? I'd like to think I don't fall into that category, and the vast majority of people that I serve with hope to never have to fire a weapon in anger.

The whole point that Mike Paxton is trying to make right now is that training and procedures need to be examined so that the cops know better how to handle situations like this. It breaks my heart what happened, but this is not the time to attack all police officers over the actions of one. I really do think that the Austin PD is handling this well, and something good will come out of it.

Koda wrote:

lizzyduhh wrote:

this just makes me fucking hate cops that much more... that was unfair and my heart goes out to this poor guy. I mean, i know it might not mean much cuz i didn't know him or his dog, but i did add the petition to my facebook encouraging people to sign.

All cops are not created equal.

Seriously... we are only ever going to hear the bad stories. When does the news EVER report on routine things?

i know that but i work in a profession where i deal with police officers my entire work shift and 88% of them act like they are on top of the world. i wont lie, there are some that are extremely nice and sweet, but for the most part, as soon as they put on the badge, its like they were injected with some sort of power trip

i received another response from the cheif of police, if you guys want to e-mail him his e-mail is art.acevedo@austintexas.gov

We are receiving thousands of e-mails and telephone calls on this matter. Many of the written and telephonic contacts with members of our department have been vile, and included serious threats, including threats to shoot our officer(s). I personally crafted the following response and I apologize in advance if you are offended by this fact. I am one person, with a department to run, a city to protect, and a family to love. I assure you that we will have some positive outcomes out of this incident, but we have to conduct our review in accordance with the law and our own policies, regardless of public sentiment. After meeting with and personally speaking with Officer Griffin (who is part of a household that includes family dogs, like most of our police department families), I know he feels badly for Mr. Paxton and Cisco. Officer Griffin has requested to personally meet with Mr. Paxton to extend his condolences. I have extended this offer to Mr. Paxton and he has indicated he will contact me when he is ready to meet with Officer Griffin.

The hyper-vigilance issue I refer to below is something that we will have to consider and monitor closely throughout our department and it has to be part of our review. As to the mob mentality I reference below, sorry, but when people are calling us and directing profanity laced insults and threats toward our employee(s) in writing and on telephone calls, I can’t think of how else to describe it. While I expect to be subjected to public scrutiny, I don’t expect people in this department to be subjected to the treatment they are receiving. Finally, please share this e-mail with whomever you would like, I stand by every word.

----------------------------------------------------------------

i'm not sure if the original message i posted was something he had pre-written and just used that as an auto response for any e-mail labeled with Cisco's name (it sounds like it from the 'i'm just one person' statement) but it's disappointing to hear that his entire police force is receiving death threats over the mistake of one person. he states officer griffin has dogs himself so i'm hoping to hear what it is that they are planning on doing as for as updating their policies/retraining their staff.

judalina wrote:

i'm not sure if the original message i posted was something he had pre-written and just used that as an auto response for any e-mail labeled with Cisco's name (it sounds like it from the 'i'm just one person' statement) but it's disappointing to hear that his entire police force is receiving death threats over the mistake of one person. he states officer griffin has dogs himself so i'm hoping to hear what it is that they are planning on doing as for as updating their policies/retraining their staff.

Honestly? The fact that you are getting ANY response when you are a random person from Illinois is impressive. Do you realize how many THOUSANDS of emails he is probably getting right now with the INTERNATIONAL attention this situation is getting? Even if he DID concoct an auto-response, the fact that he took the time to DO that is noteworthy.

And I'm not sure what everyone expects... THIS is exactly why I try to squash any sense of a "mob mentality" or "mass hysteria" when we post things like that on this forum. Because YES, I 100% believe that EVERY COP in Austin right now has his life on the line. I have no doubt that people are sending death threats and although I think he should have been taken out the field ANYWAY, I'm sure that Officer Griffin was taken off the streets to protect his own life.

The PERSON is smart, but PEOPLE are dumb and irrational. It's this sort of stuff that drives me crazy. What makes people think they have the right to make death threats on ANYONE in a situation like this? This hyper vigilantism is a SERIOUS concern and I give some major props to the Chief of Police and the entire APD for how they have handled the situation.

Cisco did not deserve to die, but NO ONE deserves to be harmed any further from such an awful tragedy.

i definitely agree with you tori, as i had also e-mailed the mayor of austin regarding their pet policies and chief acevedo was the only one who responded and i definitely appreciated it. i'm not saying i expect officer griffin to get fired but this is the first that i've heard of someone's pet getting shot and killed RIGHT in front of his owner on his own property and i'm just very curious about what is being done about it because this is affecting a whole nation of police officers not just the APD (i'm assuming that whatever policies and procedures they begin to place will be expected to be practiced in all PD's). i feel very sorry for mr. paxton but at the same time i admire his attitude about the whole thing because also he is obviously upset with officer griffin he is not looking for revenge against a specific person rather spread awareness on an incident that should be prevented in the future from happening to anyone. i understand the importance of police officers and i've been so lucky to only have dealt with very kind officers (even when they are writing me a ticket) so i have no intention of offending anyone by posting the e-mails, i just wanted everyone to know that chief acevedo obviously does care and from his responses they aren't just trying to kick this situation under the rug.