Imagine this, if you will... It is the morning of February 5th, 2015. You are napping along with you faithful, full-of-life dog, who to you is a family member, your son. All is not well in your world because you are homeless, living in a campsite in the woods near Lake Ft. Worth. Even so, though, you have your buddy next to you, so it's not so bad. You have his love, and that's good enough for now; you are at peace.
Unbeknownst to you, three people, two carrying shotguns, are coming up on you, using stealth tactics so you won't hear their approach. Then suddenly, right outside your tent door, you hear a shout, "Ft. Worth Police!" Everything suddenly turns into a shocked blur... Following the shout, you hear "Hold your dog!" Your dog is already on his way out, though... Then instantly, you hear a shotgun go off... You know, you just know, that shot was your dog being shot. ...and your world has now turned into a nightmare...
But it's okay, right? You've just stepped into the Twilight Zone. It's all fictional, just a story. After all, you weren't doing anything wrong, so the police would never hurt you or your dog, he is such a good, gentle lover of life, faithfully always at your side through thick and thin...
This is where the chilling truth comes out... This is NOT fiction; this is the horrifying truth. All too many people in the United States are facing this same tragedy with the police using excessive force to kill their dogs. Some may argue that there are incidents when the dog was attempting to injure the officer; in this case, a dog behavioral expert has told the family that this dog's body language does not indicate an attempted attack. Even so, if the dog is really attacking the officer, it is still not necessary to shoot him/her; tazers or pepper spray will incapacitate the dog without any permanent damage.
According to Leo Hohmann in his article in WND, "animal-abuse activists have kept statistics, and they say a pet is killed by law enforcement every 98 minutes in America." (Read more at http://www.wnd.com/...) When you break down the numbers, that means somewhere in the USA every 24-hours, more than 14 dogs are shot. That's over 5363 dogs in one year, every 365 days.
And that's not all... Too many times, from what I've read in many sources of many dog shootings, the police don't just shoot the dog, they also seem to choose to not admit they shouldn't have done it. If there are witnesses, and the officers' account contradicts that of the witnesses, the testimonies of the witnesses are never taken into account. Seriously, if someone kills a human, the testimony of the witnesses will be what is considered if it is different than the ones doing the killing. If the officers are wearing body cams, the video is edited. Again, if it were someone killing a human, the raw video would be shown to the investigators, not an altered video. The result of these cover-ups is the majority of officers who shoot canine family members are never held accountable for their actions. They literally get away with murder.
Obviously, since these officers are unwilling to own up to their actions, something needs to be put in place that can be used to hold the officers accountable for their actions. And having special training only to deal with dogs hasn’t been shown to work. Such a training program needs to include statutes that will allow for the mandatory prosecution of the officers involved; they need to be held accountable for their actions. That’s where the scenario at the beginning of this article comes into play… It actually happened. The man was Lonnie Reynolds, the dog was Shadow.
The Fort Worth Police Department has mandatory dog training, which clearly didn’t work in this incident; if the officers had faced consequences, then they may have stayed their hand instead of shooting Shadow. Shadow may then still be alive, side-by-side with Lonnie, and with Lonnie’s ex-wife, Robin Fairchild, and her husband James Fairchild, who actively shared time spent with Shadow, who are friends still with Lonnie. The Texas State Congess has a bill, House Bill 593, that will make dog training mandatory. It has now garnered preliminary approval and is working its way through legislation. But according to both Lonnie Reynolds and Robin Fairchild, House Bill 593 has nothing in it that would mandate laws insisting that, if an officer does shoot a dog, then he/she will be held accountable for her/his actions. That is akin to a program making it mandatory that everyone gets training against killing another human being. Without any kind of consequences to their actions, there are more people who may not care if they break the law than those who kill now. In reality, those who do kill, despite the current laws and their consequences, will be held accountable for their actions. The same should apply for dog killings by police.
So, the question now is what can an individual do to stop this police-related dog shooting epidemic? The first, most obvious action is to educate yourself on what is going on. Then you need to find out how you can influence your representative to either propose a bill that mandates a training program AND mandatory consequences for their actions, or to support such a bill if proposed by another representative. After that, get busy, get involved, follow through with influencing such legislation until it's signed into law. The next question is… Why should I be concerned with this? It’ll never happen to me or to my fur child! The answer to that is, before February 5th 2015, neither did Lonnie Reynolds, Robin Fairchild, and James Fairchild expect it could happen to Shadow. As one of the signs they created for their rally stated, “This week, mine [my dog]. Next week it could be yours [your dog]." Is that a risk you are willing to take?
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*If you'd like to help make sure the officers involved are held accountable, please sign this Care2 petition, please go to: http://www.thepetitionsite.com/...