I can remember firing a dildo out of a potato gun from my front porch on Leavenworth St. in MHK back in college. Must have flown several blocks...

Like I said... it's the same concept as playing the race card. If dumbass wasn't farting around shooting potato guns in the backyard then Sandy would be alive today.

The Policeman's job is to protect and serve. Why knock on the front door when they're shooting in the back? That's kinda stupid.

It could've easily been avoided if dumbass wasn't farting around in the backyard doing ILLEGAL shit.

Very smart, Fish.

Airport Security: Of course it's company policy never to, imply ownership in the event of a dildo... always use the indefinite article a dildo, never your dildo.

http://i40.tinypic.com/518yog.jpg

That doesn't excuse a cop from using proper procedure. This is like saying any person who starts to attack a cop should be shot on site.

It's absolutely absurd that the cop thought the only response was to shoot the dog. Pepper spray or a taser. You do that with humans, why the **** would you not do that with an animal? Especially when you're on their property and they are not in violation of any leash laws?

The dog didn't do anything wrong. It was just protecting the property.

I some cases I agree. But at the same time... I'm shooting to kill a pitbull also. I'd look at it as it or me. Maybe that's my ignorance on the how Pit Bulls are really loving animals, but it is what it is. Furthermore, cops just shot a lady the other day that charged them as she was mentally unstable in OP, KS. Some cried that they could've restrained her blah blah blah... but until you have an uncontrollable woman trying to kill you or a man eating (maybe Big Daddy will take the bait :D) pitbull about to lock his jaws on you, you'd have no idea how you'd try to bust out pepper spray and use proper procedure.

I always thought the objective was to stay alive by any means necessary.

Having said that, the dog didn't do anything wrong (we all agree to that) it was the idiot playing victim that did. The dead dog was a result of his stupidity. No matter how innocent the potato gun may seem it is a weapon that can kill people.

Story: when dumbass person and dumbass cop collide.

The deputy pulled his pistol and fired, missing the dog as it lunged. The dog lunged a second time and the deputy fired again, hitting Sandy between the shoulders.


I don't get this. Was the dog chained?

Again - they weren't shooting in the back. Nothing was going on at that point, the people were inside.

They weren't doing anything illegal when the cops got there, the cops had merely recieved reports of 'gunfire' in the area. Hell, based on that alone, I'm not so sure the cops had the right to enter the 'curtilage' of the home. That's certainly not public view and with no warrant along with no direct observation of illegal activity, the cop shouldn't have just walked into the back yard. A cop may be able to give you a better breakdown of that, but I don't believe opening a gate to enter a privacy fence without a warrant and without direct observation is Constitutionally permissible.

And I reiterate, I'd have never even considered the possibility of a damn spud-gun being considered an illegal firearm. Had this cop not just ****ed up and killed someone else's dog, he wouldn't have either. That's the kind of stuff that slides by with a warning every time.

Had Columbus not discovered America, none of this would've happened. At the same time, at some point supervening stupidity takes over. A cop walking into a backyard without so much as knocking on the door based on nothing more than a neighbor's report, despite the fact that there would have been no 'gunshots' when he arrived, qualifies as supervening stupidity.

Afterall - these neighborhood reports were so accurate that they clearly mischaractarized the nature of the activity. They could've just as easily led the cops to the wrong house. There's a reason we have the procedural safeguards in place that we have. Things like requiring a warrant or knock/announce or even requesting consent for a search - they all are designed to avoid things exactly like this.

This cop was reckless ****wit. His conduct overrides the relatively benign misconduct of a couple of kids with a damn potato launcher.

Ticket the guy for firing the potato gun and the police department should have to compensate the dog owner for loss of property.

So is a F'ing bottle rocket. Are you telling me you never shot a bottle rocket in a restricted neighborhood when you were a kid? FFS, you're giving these guys just the excuse they are looking for. It's a hypertechnical, garbage way to cover their own asses after being exceedingly reckless.

There are any number of reasons why a cop walking into a back yard unannounced without a search warrant based on nothing more than a (inaccurate) tip from a neighbor is an absolutely awful idea. Does it really take much imagination to come up with a circumstance where the neighbor was doing nothing wrong? Look at his fence - that's a full blown privacy fence. His neighbors knew nothing but the sound. The guy could've been back there with a nail gun or a concrete driver. He could've been back there with black cats.

It was the supervening stupidity of the officer that led to this. There are a myriad of policies put in place to protect citizens from this kind of intrustion and this cop ignored all of them. Now he's trying to fall back on this kid's exceedingly innocent misconduct as an excuse and you're taking the bait.

The Sheriff actually called the guy a numbskull that should've been reading a book. What more do you need to see from these folks to recognize what it is they're trying to do here?

With the tater gun in sight, I think he has the right to enter. Correct me if I'm wrong. I don't claim to be a lawyer.

damn renters....

I hope someone standing on rainbow bridge doesn't get bitten.

1) The officer had the right to enter the back yard after noticing a weapon possibly related to the shooting: PROBABLE CAUSE

2) If the officer is entering the backyard reference a SHOOTING call, he WILL have his gun out. Now tell me, if you have a pit bull jumping at you, do you think you would have time to put your gun away and pull out your pepper spray before the dog attacks you? Not likely.

Mere possession of the tater gun isn't illegal.

And I'm also not sure I buy the whole "happened to see the tater gun" inside the fence. Look at those fence planks; these aren't spaced pickets here. I've seen plenty a police report indicate an 'innocent' observation that was anything but. Do you really think this dog that was that protective of it's property didn't notice the cops looking into the fence and come over to announce its presence? My Labradords would've come screaming to the gate at full throat and they wouldn't hurt a cat. With the conduct immediately following the 'discovery' in this case, I'm inclined to believe he's full of shit.

There may well be a plain view component at work here, but I'm not certain. The open fields rule applies only to areas outside of the curtilege. This is based on what steps the owner has taken to ensure privacy and proximity to the house. A tall privacy fence immediately surrounding a relatively small back yard is extremely unlikely to fall outside the curtilage here. Simple ol' plain view could apply, but I'm still not sure how that gets them on the premises.

But in either event, it doesn't speak to the crux of the matter. It's all hypertechnical garbage that the cops are falling back on now that the end results went terribly awry. There was no reason at all for them not to just go knock on the damn door, especially if they've been looking in the yard closely enough to observe the spud gun itself. They knew nothing was going haywire.