I once shot a pitbull just to watch him die

because if a call comes out of possible shots being fired in my backyard, I could bleed to death waiting for you to finish this debate on if you should enter or not because you saw my kids GI joe gun near the fence.... LOL

so, is the main focus here that he shot the dog, or that he was even in the backyard to begin with? I'm losing focus because CSI Chiefsplanet showed up speculating about ninjas and constitutional rights being trampled on because of public/private domain....

Exactly.

This is really pretty simple fellas. If you are doing something in your yard that is illegal, and you own a dog that has a reputation for being violent, then don't be pissed if a cop barges into your back yard and shoots your dog when it charges the cop. What is so hard to understand here? I am one of the first ones to bash cops for being wanna be marines and power pricks most of the time, but this one is pretty cut and dry. Oh, and don't try the "he didn't know it was illegal, he saw it on utube" crap. Anybody that has enough brains to deserve to be walking around free in our society knows you cant shoot potato guns off in the back yard in a neighborhood. I did plenty of crap like that when I was a kid, but a. I didn't get caught, and b. I didn't have a pitbull running around in the back yard.

That's the problem.

Another whiskey tango pitbull owner story. Shocking. These poor victims.

this would be a much more interesting (and tragic) conversation if the guy had shot the cop when he barged in instead of the cop shooting the dog. THEN, the guy is simply protecting his home from an invader (if the cop didn't identify himself). But he didn't. I love dogs, and if i have a gun and any breed of dog attacks me, I'm shootin the dog too.

I don't get to this point often, but /throws hands up/ that's it, I'm out of here. some of you just don't get it.

even tooge gets it and he bashes cops all the time. I don't know why I'm surprised, one time I had someone tell me I stopped them illegally because they made three turns and I stayed with them before I turned on my lights. Apparently they didn't think I had the right to stop them for speeding after they make three turns.

it's hard to fix the wall of stupid

Loaded .357 w/ a hair trigger in the wrong hands, turned loose upon an unsuspecting world.

MOH, from what I gather about you, you have a family and aren't gonna go discharging potato guns if you live in a neighborhood cuz you dont want to go to jail and you dont want cops coming into your yard where your pit bull is kept. I feel bad for this dude losing his dog, and I personally have nothing against pit bulls. However, our society puts forth certain views of things, right or wrong. Just because we dont agree with those views doesn't mean they are acceptable to society as a whole. It just so happens that society as a whole view pit bulls as a dangerous breed of dog, and therefore, people behave differently when confronted with them. I doubt this cop shoots a cocker spaniel in the same situation. That cop should be thanking his lucky stars he didn't bust into the yard of some guy that was showing his new AR 15 to his buddies and feels threatened by people busting into his back yard unanounced.

A) As to the first bolded point - that's a pursuit and thus falls under an exigency to the warrant requirement, but I will note that just running through the yard would not even constitute 4th amendment activity because there was no search. Entering a yard to investigate alleged contreband is a search. Your attempted analog is easily distinguishable and thus not terribly relevant to the discussion.

B) As to the 2nd point - that's the entire crux of the discussion. If you believe this officer was behaving as though he felt it was an emergency situation requiring his immediate intervention to prevent harm to himself or others, then he was there legally. As I have already alluded to, there are certainly circumstances that would have made this legal.

I do not believe he was acting in that manner and as such I believe that he actually felt (and that's the key, what he actually believed) that this was not an emergency situation. If he did not genuinely believe that this was an emergency situation, then he was there illegally.

And I stand behind what I said from the very start, legally or not, he displayed extremely poor judgment.

Uh oh.

Like hell.

You don't lose your Constitutional liberties when you're doing something stupid or even illegal. In fact, that's exactly when those liberties become most paramount.

Speaking of folks I hope don't become lawyers or police officers...

my view is that a pitbull dog( and bulldogs in general) is dangerous period. Those who keep them run a risk. If you dont have your Ps & Qs lined up with these dogs you can expect bullshit to enter your life via your charge.
And i live outside the city.