A Community Fails and a Dog Dies

[Animal Ark]

Yesterday, I published a blog post about a fatal shooting of a dog by Columbia Heights Police Officers. I promised to follow up with additional information as it became available. I am posting this after having obtained a partial copy of the official Columbia Heights Police Department Report. The full report is 7 pages. I was only able to obtain 5 of those 7 pages. However, the report I do have paints a story of the failure of an entire community and the tragically unnecessary death of a dog.

The report starts right off with the first bit of concerning data. The dispatch information reads:

9YR SON GOT BIT BY NEIGH DOG / NO IMMED MED ATTN NEEDED

How a relatively insignificant bite from a dog became a tragedy unfolds in the report.

Act 1 scene 1: A group of unsupervised children are playing outside. Some of the kids are picking on one boy. They steal his "sippy cup" and throw it over a fence into a yard where a dog is chained. To quote the report:

[redacted] stated he was playing with his friends when one of them threw his drink cup over the fence by [the dog].

The report goes on to say:

[Redacted] went to get his cup that was by the dog.

At this point, the child sustained a minor injury, reportedly due to a bite by the dog. A visit to the hospital was reportedly only recommended by police for "preventative measures".

It is worth pointing out that Minnesota dangerous dog laws are quite strict. However, they exempt cases of provocation and trespass. An even superficial reading of this report clearly indicates that both trespass and provocation were issues in this case.

By the time police officers arrived on the scene, a number of people had already failed this dog. A breeder had produced and sold this dog to someone apparently unprepared for the responsibility. A new dog owner (according to the report, the owner had purchased the dog only 3 days prior to this incident) left their dog outside and unsupervised, in spite of the fact that neighbors reported that kids in the area had teased and taunted the dog.

Parents of kids in the neighborhood had failed to train or supervise their children. Then, ultimately, the City of Columbia Heights dispatched 4 untrained and unprepared officers to the home where this dog lived. They found a dog, evidently behind a fence and tethered. They reported that the dog barked and growled at them. Therefore, they believed the dog to be aggressive.

I probably do not have to say this, but barking and growling are natural dog behaviors, especially when a group of strange, uniformed men are entering a dog's yard.

The officers who responded in this case do not appear to have understood this. Nowhere in the report do any of the officers say anything about trying to appease or calm the dog to gain its trust. Instead, they surrounded it. They shot it repeatedly with a taser and apparently did everything possible to trigger an aggressive response in this young female dog. She was surrounded by officers, shot repeatedly with a taser and then captured on a catch pole. And they expected her to calm down? To quote one portion of the report:

This time both taser probes hit the dog and the dog locked up and fell to it's back with its feet in the air. Officer Pikala was then able to get the catchpole loop around the dog's neck. I shut the taser off, while Officer Pikala had to virtually choke the dog out using the pole.

At this point in the terrible story, 4 police officers had a 50 pound dog held by 2 restraints. One restraint was a sturdy "catch pole" frequently used to control much larger and more menacing animals than this one, and the tether to which the dog was still tied.

While it could be argued whether or not these officers needed to take this dog into their custody, one thing is certain: if they needed complete control of her (the dog), they should have had it. Instead, they report they did not and the officer in charge ordered the dog shot.

The first shot entered the dog "behind the shoulder". It took two more shots to kill her.

Many questions remain about this case. One thing, however, is certain: an entire community of people failed this dog, the dog's owner who left their pet unsupervised in the yard, the parents of the kids who failed to teach or supervise them, and the city, who clearly failed to train law enforcement personnel who responded to this situation.

The only one who behaved in a predictable and understandable way in this case, ironically, was the dog that was shot.

Hopefully the City of Columbia Heights will learn something from this case and provide better training for law enforcement personnel responding to situations like this. Otherwise, they should consider contracting their animal control services with one of the very respected agencies in Minnesota already trained to do so.

[Animal Ark]

Thanks for the comments everyone. It is such a sickening story.

Personally, I suspect the officers were trying to do what they thought was the right thing. I understand that a dog protecting a yard can appear frightening. They were probably scared and didn't know what to do.

4 frightened, untrained cops with weapons are, themselves, frightening things.

Lets hope Columbia Heights does something to make sure this does not happen again.

Additionally, this would be a good time for officials in other cities to begin asking some hard questions about the training their own law enforcement personnel have received for handling animals.

[animal doc]

pt one: the dog was teased by the children
pt. two: the dog was fenced
pt. three: the dog was tethered
pt. four: the cup was thrown into the yard and the child trespassed
pt. five: the officers arrived and noted the dog behind the fence tethered
pt. six: an officer approached the dog and the dog was growling (surprise!!) but even according to the police the dog was tethered and couldn't reach them
Pt. seven: the dog was tasered once incompletely (any question as to what this action would due to any dog) in this case the dog kicked and screamed
Pt. eight: the dog was approached from behind and was tasered again whereupon it went and cowered by the garage trying to get away from the officers
Pt. nine: the officers secured it on a catch pole whereupon the dog fought (surprise again!!!)
pt. ten: the officer shot the dog behind the shoulder injuring it whereupon the dog became more aggressive (surprise surprise!!!)
pt. eleven: the dog was then shot twice more before dying
Pt. twelve, thirteen fourteen fifteen etc.: why in the #()#($&* was there no one called who had experience with this type of scenario, this dog responded exactly how I would expect any dog to respond, and even if this particular dog was aggressive it was handled in the most inappropriate manner possible. Any good animal control officer could have restrained a 50# animal on a catch pole and tether and secured it into a kennel.

[Lynne P]

This is horrifying and there needs to be some kind of hearing in Columbia Heights. This is a textbook example of WHAT NOT TO DO. And you're right, this dog was failed by every human she ever met. Makes me just sick.

[Krystyna]

They don't have the right to deny you the other two pages. I'd go back at them to request the entire document. I'll request it too. I'm drafting a letter to the police department outlining my disgust and will be posting it on facebook for people to email/send to the police department.

[Animal Ark]

I don't know if they will pursue legal action against the County or not. It seems to me they would have a strong care for doing so. If they do, hopefully they will find an attorney with expertise in these kinds of cases. In my experience (in case they read this) Marshall Tanick is the best attorney for animal cases I know of. His number is [phone].

[pitbull friend]

Ugh, Mike, that is sickening. It points up what I learned in an excellent presentation at the Canine Legislation Conference in Kansas City 2 years ago - the reason that there are fewer fatal dog bites in the U.S. every year than fatal lightning strikes is that there have to be multiple failures for certain types of tragedy to happen. (As there were here.) Any sense of whether the family of this poor dog is going to pursue this w/ local law enforcement?