You might recall the suspicious circumstances surrounding the tazing and shooting of Rosie the Newfoundland dog in WA. Police dash-cam videos have now been released which seem to cast additional doubt on the “threat” posed by Rosie:
The videos, released by Des Moines Police show the dog being tazed by an officer, then running away. In another video you hear an officer fire his gun, presumably hitting the dog, then another officer saying “Nice”.
I’m video challenged here so please weigh in with your thoughts if you choose to watch either vid.
The case is still under review.
Thank you Clarice for the link.
Watched both videos in their entirety and am thoroughly disgusted!
Thought “Keystone Cops” videos were supposed to be funny.
If this community doesn’t have an adequate animal care and control staff, than its police officers ought to be more adequately trained.
Couldn’t even figure out the mechanics of the catch pole!
This wasn’t King Kong! This was an innocent, frightened Newfy.
Shame that they decided to “Just shoot it”.
Considering the outcome, I wish that they had, rather than subject her to the three tazes prior.
You can’t teach common sense, as the saying goes. And you can’t teach compassion.
But you can implement better training and better protocol.
They also say you can’t fix stupid! That seems to apply as well. What a travesty this all was! These guys should be suspended.
I could not get the video to run.. probably just as well.. but I did read the whole police report.. shocking..shooting a dog who was “foaming at the mouth”.. you would be foaming at the mouth as well if you had been tazed twice and chased a 1/4 of mile .. and were frightened..
The thing that struck me about this was the constant reference to “unlicensed” as if that would have saved this dog from the trigger happy cops
There was also a statement from a witness who owned the property where the dog was shot withing hearing range of her two children.
She said when they brought the truck to remove the body. “We need a truck. We have never shot one this large before”
and to assuage their guilt they offered the children in the house coupons for ice cream.. as if that would make it all go away.
A disgusting and unnecessary death of a gentle dog by trigger happy cops who called in their buddies to watch them shoot a dog with an assault rifle.. FOUR TIMES..They should be fired.. but won;t be
Wow. This enrages as much as Michael Vick.
It’s not a rare thing. Just seach the ‘puppycide’ tag at The Agitator blog ( http://tinyurl.com/36u4e33 ), he’s been tracking these kinds of ‘overkill’ on pet dogs by police for years. It’s a systemic problem, caused by poor training of officers in how to deal with dogs and judge their actual threat.
I could only watch the first few moments of the first film. It was enough for me to realize that the Newfie’s fate had already been discussed and decided. One of them says in the very begining *who is going to shoot it?*
They recognized the breed, said it was a big bear and didn’t seem alarmed. There is a dog alarm barking but it could have been the St Bernard *behind* the newf they were comparing it to.
I realize they could not have put it in their own vehicle’s. I don’t understand why they couldn’t have called for AC with their catch poles etc to assist.
The first few minutes were enough for me to decide these guys were looking for something to shoot that day.
Very disturbing that these police officers actually enjoy killing. Their attitude is despicable and I certainly hope they don’t have a wife and children at home to continue their carnage on whenever they want to have a little enjoyment. No one with their type of attitude should even be allowed to have a weapon, and here they are in a job that they are expected to act with good judgment, character and honor. They failed exceedingly so. The police force needs a total revamping in screening those who apply for the job as Police Officer.
This is why I have taken a geis to always stop and pick up any stray dog I see on the street. I once blocked traffic at a 4 way intersection to allow one little dog to escape the traffic alive. I had to keep him for several days while I tracked down his owners (on vacation out of town) and their dog sitter didn’t even bother to tell them he was missing.
I know that if one of my dogs ever got out that I’d rather them be safe and alive off the street than being chased down by animal control or worse, officers like this.
I haven’t had a chance to watch the videos yet but, like Alice, I went through the full investigative report, available via a link on the page below. It’s 170 pages of grim, bureaucratic reading:
http://www.trunewfsrescue.com/
Bottom line from the King County prosecutor — the officers will not be criminally charged. A police department shooting review (to determine whether they violated procedures) is apparently underway. Gee, wanna speculate on the outcome?
It remains to be seen whether the owners will file a lawsuit. They are being represented by Adam Karp, a prominent animal law attorney located in Bellingham.
As poorly as the officers who chose to kill Rosie acted, I wonder too about the response of Jan Magnuson, the Des Moines AC officer who was off-duty on the day Rosie was killed. The officers on the scene emailed her a picture of Rosie and asked if she knew her. Magnuson said no and that was the end of her involvement. She’s been with the Des Moines PD (AC is part of the PD) since 1988. She knew these men. And yet she did not call them on their cell phones to learn more and at least counsel them. No advice from her on the use of pieces of hot dog to lure a frightened animal. And no coming in on her day off to make sure the dog was secured with no harm to anyone.
And, though I agree with Pai that there’s something to be said for training police officers, Jan Magnuson’s bio page says that she
“has taught animal handling/officer safety classes to police officers and fire fighters, has made training videos used by police departments, and has been on interview boards for hiring police/animal control officers.”
So she may well have trained these guys. Just, you know, not so it actually worked.
I mean, I’m like anybody else. I watch Pit Bulls and Parolees, I read about Randy Grim’s luring and trapping of fearful stray dogs. It seems pretty clear. Some kindness and quiet, some hot dogs, a blue rope instead of a Taser and a gun. So, maybe some training in animal handling from rescuers.
And maybe a memo about how many large dogs drool. Not foam. Drool. Even I know that, and I’m a cat person, for crying out loud.
A Newfy foaming at the mouth, man we never seen one that didn’t drool and then get them excited and swcared of course they will get foamy. What a poor excuse for police officers. Slow day…make some excitement, gosh what can we shoot??
The only commands they try are “BAD DOG GO HOME BAD DOG GO HOME”.
How about teaching them some basic dog commands like “leave it”, “down”, “hold”, “stop” (think they’d know that one although not all dogs do), or just plain “NO”.
How about the chubby cop who just keeps whipping out his gun and “I’ve got lethal”? I’m sure he was just oozing fear from his pores even more than the others. Really too bad their dumb human noses couldn’t smell the fear oozing from poor Rosie so they’d know she was terrified since they clearly didn’t understand her mostly standoffishness/running was fear and not wanting to attack, just to protect herself a LITTLE from the danger she rightfully perceived from being cornered by these twits with their chatty radios and cars with flashing lights and THEIR aggressive behavior.
Foaming at the mouth. HOOEY. How long since she’d had a drink and under stress. How about offering her some water? A treat? Anything that would show friendliness?
These were untrained police officers, not animal control officers. That was the problem with this situation.
The officers had a dog who had been reported running free. As the tape showed, this dog did in fact have free access to the neighbourhood.
The dog DID in fact charge the fence. The officers DID jump to “let’s just shoot it” far too quickly, but they did discuss many methods of tazing the dog (their only other method of control training) and then containing it in a vehicle. When the dog was initially tazed, it appears like the dog charged and the female officer on the scene did NOT wait before the dog was over the fence – which was the plan. One tazer will not take down a dog of that size long enough to use a catch pole. Instead, she reacted immediately, appearing to catch even the other officers off guard and sending the dog running.
It’s unclear whether it was a cop who made the “nice” comment, although I didn’t get that impression – I could be wrong.
I counted at least three times the dog got tazed – three times they used non-lethal force to try to bring the dog down without shooting it. I believe there was one more but it’s difficult to tell because the sound is so incredibly poor on the videos.
Now, I am NOT condoning the actions of the police in this situation, so please don’t accuse me of doing so. But the reality is that they were handed a situation that was doomed from the beginning. They were set up to fail. They were handed a situation they could not get out of without either tazing and poling that dog into a car or shooting it dead.
They were handed a dog that was not contained properly. That was displaying aggressive behaviour. They could not leave the scene as it was and simply walk away. Had the dog been truly aggressive (we don’t really know, do we?) and the next person to walk by was a 10 year old, there would be lawsuits all around. They were unable to reach the dog’s owners.
For whatever reason, rather than call animal control, they were given the job to make the situation safe. That had to mean subduing the dog. Thanks to the hair trigger of a certain tazer, their initial plan backfired and the dog ran. At this point, it is definitely safe to assume that the dog is a potential threat – even though it was the police who assured that this was the case by taking an already possibly aggressive dog and shocking the shit out of it. Again, the only solution would be subduing the dog.
Now, when the dog was found in the bushes, what followed would I suppose depend on local law. Where I live the police never would have been involved, but animal control would have acted the same way. That dog would have been euthanized BEFORE the bushes, in fact. Displaying aggressive behaviour + running loose = dispatch on scene if any difficulty if given in recovering the animal and the public could be in danger. If the animal can be safely captured, dangerous dog laws apply and your dog must be registered as such, including a whopping license fee, required sterilization and microchipping, fencing with a roof, muzzle in public, $1 million liability including dog bite insurance, etc, etc.
These are a combination of laws on various levels.
But I digress.
The error here was that the police WERE CALLED. That they were even SENT to this address in ANYTHING other than a backup context in case a gun was ultimately required (let’s be realistic, occasionally these situations warrant such actions to protect the public from an immediate danger).
Am I angry? No. I’m livid. Furious, in fact. Mostly at the police department for sending these officers on this assignment in the first place (I don’t believe that any of the individual officers showed anything but a complete flabbergast at what to do, at how to handle the situation), including the smartass who put catch poles in these cars without even explaining their BASIC use the officers and perhaps making sure they were all functional every once in a while…
But partly I’m angry at Rosie’s owner, who is not without blame in this situation. Rosie bore no collar, and no tags. She lived in a yard that clearly could not contain her AT ALL and yet she bore no tether. Rosie’s owner failed to do the most basic thing to keep her safe.
How many of you would, living on that street, would let your dog live like that and then not admit some guilt for the outcome?
The ONLY victim here is Rosie, and perhaps the family – who it clearly states on the tape told the police that they did not want them anywhere NEAR their home with weapons. Conveniently, the section of tape with this conversation is blanked out, as is all of the sound during the confrontation with Rosie in BOTH patrol cars.
So there’s what I want to know.
Where was Animal Control, and WHY were the police handling what is OBVIOUSLY an Animal Control issue? The cop in the 545 video states that people had been reporting a black bear in the neighbourhood. Uh… yeah, ALSO an Animal Control issue.
My ultimate point is that the blame here needs to be placed on those who fudged up the assignment in the first place – and on Animal Control for not being where it should be, which is in charge of controlling animals.
Believe me, if you send Animal Control to break up a domestic disturbance, people would be just as pissed when they came to in the back of the transport van after being tranq’d and catch poled – not to mention the uproar when their relatives learned they’d been euth’d after 72 hours when no one came to pick them up and their crazy pleas for help got them both quickly labeled as “unfit for adoption”. I’m just saying, neither is fit to deal with the other’s job, yet we ask them to and then get angry when it doesn’t work out.
Now let me be VERY clear here. There is a HUGE difference between incidences like this one and ones like the Golden who was shot in his own yard, or where dogs are shot while in their kennels during home invasions or when little dogs are shot for being aggressive on people’s front stoop. The shoot first, ask questions later deal that seems to permeate cop culture when it comes to dogs, particularly in the US, is a VALID problem that needs to be dealt with swiftly and with an iron fist and NO mercy to those who kill these pets for no reason.
However, I consider this a different situation altogether – when a police officer is purposely sent to do an ACO’s job, the blame goes up the pipe, not down it.
Kim, if you read the report, and watched the video, they knew Rosie was in her own yard. She never showed aggression but, was protecting her property. That’s what dogs do. Des Moines police are acting animal control when animal control is off. Since when are police exempt from learning how to properly do their job? If you are acting animal control, learn how to use a catch pole. They had access to animal control (read the police report and see the police dash cams). They chose not to get advice from animal control. Use of force is always under extreme circumstances. Because a dog is loose, barking and not taking kindly to being approached, does not qualify for euthanasia. Period. Rosie never growled or attempted to bite or attack. Rosie did not fit the legal definition of aggressive. In addition to that, tazing a dog does not give an animal, which does not comprehend what is happening, the ability to say to themselves, “oh, I’d better do what this officer says”. They never, once attempted to use the catch pole on her. So, how is this so vastly different than the golden? It’s not. A dog, getting a death warrant, for completely normal behavior in their own front yard. Many areas of the country do not have regular animal control. Police are acting animal control. Everywhere. We can blame higher ups for not hand holding but, at the end of the day, we are all required, in our careers and jobs, to do what we do with excellence and without blaming everyone else for not holding our hand. Police are not exempt from what every grown up has to do: take ownership of your chosen career and do it well. Because ultimately, they work for us. Rosie was earlier being chased into traffic. That was still not cause for shooting her. Neither was what she might do. She had never attacked anyone or even attempted to. As far as the “NICE” goes, if you want to kid yourself into thinking that was any of the absolutely mortified witnesses, it wasn’t. It was officer Arico. And, there were no female cops on the scene. I’m wondering if you read the report or watched the entire video…..The saint bernard, behind the fence was charging and the police were actually debating tazering that one. WTH? Rosie was tasered at least 3 times. After the first time, it didn’t work. They also threw rocks at her. Again, wth??? Read the report and, watch the dashcams, in their entirety. It’s all up on the Des Moines city website. You tell me, who put the public in more danger: Rosie or the Des Moines PD. They tased her INTO traffic. They were concerned about the situation being taped.
Amy, thank you for correcting a few of my initial errors, but I still stand by my overall assessment of the situation.
“Kim, if you read the report, and watched the video, they knew Rosie was in her own yard. She never showed aggression but, was protecting her property. That’s what dogs do.”
I didn’t read the report. I frankly don’t care what the report says, because the report was written by the very people who did this, making it suspect at best on the details. I’m much more interested in the videos and any eye witness accounts.
Regarding Rosie defending her property, the charge that seemed to be the most amped up was when Officer #3 walked away to visit a neighbour. Of course, to me this says that Rosie was likely NOT an actual threat off of her property. However, how likely is it that the officers are aware of this? All they saw was a dog who was likely to attack the next passerby, or who had obvious access to the road to cause an accident. Why? Because they are the POLICE, not ACOs.
“Des Moines police are acting animal control when animal control is off. Since when are police exempt from learning how to properly do their job? If you are acting animal control, learn how to use a catch pole.”
Since when is it your job as an employee to ensure that your training is adequate? Is it not the Chief of Police’s duty to ensure that any officers acting in this capacity have the proper training to do this job to the full capability of an ACO if indeed they are required to perform these services? It appears that they were simply handed a catch pole and told to handle the situation.
If an employee is not adequately trained, he is not at fault. You ever hear the old saying “you don’t know what you don’t know until you find out that you didn’t know it”? These officers can’t be expected to just “know” what they should be trained in to properly manage this situation. Their bosses, however, SHOULD.
“They had access to animal control (read the police report and see the police dash cams). They chose not to get advice from animal control.”
I watched both videos several times and did not see anyone turn down consultation from animal control. Also, you stated that the police only get involved in these matters when AC was “off” – if AC was available, why were they not called to handle this from the beginning?
“Use of force is always under extreme circumstances. Because a dog is loose, barking and not taking kindly to being approached, does not qualify for euthanasia. Period. Rosie never growled or attempted to bite or attack. Rosie did not fit the legal definition of aggressive.”
That depends where you live. A loose dog, barking aggressively at approaching individuals, in my city does fit the legal definition of aggressive. Remember, this was not a situation they could walk away from – it was clear that as soon as they left Rosie was free to wander into traffic. Even as a happy go lucky dog, that’s a recipe for disaster.
“In addition to that, tazing a dog does not give an animal, which does not comprehend what is happening, the ability to say to themselves, “oh, I’d better do what this officer says”. They never, once attempted to use the catch pole on her.”
I completely agree with you. Unfortunately, as I explained before they had a catch pole they were not trained to use and tazers that they were. They obviously had no training regarding the dog’s potential reaction to the tazer – if you listen to their conversation trying to work out the tazer-pole-car idea, none of them has a damn idea of what to do OTHER than shoot her. It’s obvious that these officers have received NO training in Animal Control practices or in animal handling of any kind. I mean, who tazers a dog and then tries to call it?
“So, how is this so vastly different than the golden? It’s not. A dog, getting a death warrant, for completely normal behavior in their own front yard.”
These officers were sent to deal with Rosie. The other officer was off duty and just walking down the street. These officers had no way to reach Rosie’s owners. The Golden’s young owners were sitting on the front porch. Rosie was, in their mind, potentially aggressive. The Golden was merely approaching, showing no aggressive behaviour whatsoever. The “officer” who shot the Golden was a vigilante – the officers in this situation were actually on duty trying to deal with a situation they were unqualified to deal with.
“Many areas of the country do not have regular animal control. Police are acting animal control. Everywhere. We can blame higher ups for not hand holding but, at the end of the day, we are all required, in our careers and jobs, to do what we do with excellence and without blaming everyone else for not holding our hand. Police are not exempt from what every grown up has to do: take ownership of your chosen career and do it well. Because ultimately, they work for us.”
You’re suggesting that every police officer that works in Des Moines is responsible for getting full Animal Control training on their own time, at their own expense, of their own volition? Oh, come on. What if we used that excuse for say… weapons training? As long as you have a license to own a handgun, you don’t have to go through weapons training, cadet! We can count on our officers to train themselves, you see? Can you even imagine the disasters this would create?
No, we train these people. Meticulously. For every possible scenario. And yet here we have police officers sent to do “their job” running around like a goose chase trying to make it up as they go along because not ONE of them it appears, has received training on how to handle this situation. As an employer, I do not ask my employees to do ANYTHING that I haven’t personally trained them to do. Why? Because I handle dangerous dogs and a misstep can cost someone a very serious injury. Would I ever hire someone, send them home for the weekend and expect them to be ready to work on Monday? No! They need training, and LOTS of it to do this job properly. To suggest that these officers are responsible for their own training is patently ridiculous.
“Rosie was earlier being chased into traffic. That was still not cause for shooting her. Neither was what she might do. She had never attacked anyone or even attempted to.”
Again, I refer back to the fact that these officers had NO training in Animal Control and as far as they were concerned had two choices to get this animal under control – lethal and taser. The taser was not working, they stepped up and used lethal force. Do I agree with them? No. But having several friends on the police force, I can understand why the situation escalated.
As for what she “might” do, this is used to take down human suspects all the time. When an officer of the people sees a dog he considers aggressive running through town and at the very least posing a very real traffic risk, what she “might” do becomes very real cause in that officers mind. You say she had never attacked anyone or “even attempted to”. You know this to be fact?
“As far as the “NICE” goes, if you want to kid yourself into thinking that was any of the absolutely mortified witnesses, it wasn’t. It was officer Arico.”
I’m assuming you got this directly from Officer Arico’s personal report?
“And, there were no female cops on the scene. I’m wondering if you read the report or watched the entire video….”
lol… my apologies, the poor quality of the video makes the balding officer with the sunglasses who takes the first and preemptive taser strike against Rosie in the driveway coupled with the poor sound quality and his incredibly feminine voice (honestly, on my RealPlayer, his bald patch looks like a blonde ponytail, I should post a screen shot, it’s uncanny) I mistook him for a female. Most of my focus was on the man who appeared to be in charge, and their overall body reactions – it was very clear that the actions of this dog, which are off camera, made them very nervous.
“The saint bernard, behind the fence was charging and the police were actually debating tazering that one. WTH? Rosie was tasered at least 3 times. After the first time, it didn’t work. They also threw rocks at her. Again, wth??? Read the report and, watch the dashcams, in their entirety. It’s all up on the Des Moines city website. You tell me, who put the public in more danger: Rosie or the Des Moines PD. They tased her INTO traffic.”
You just described exactly what I’ve been talking about. A series of WTF moments. Caused by… drumroll please… NO TRAINING IN THIS AREA.
“They were concerned about the situation being taped.”
That’s not the feeling I got at all. The last thing the officer said after he shot Rosie and got back in the car was lamenting about how once again an incident he KNEW was going to cause a problem did not get recorded. It did not sound to me like he was happy about it at all.
I’m sorry Amy, but I still have to place the blame here on the supervisors, the Chief of Police, and whoever runs the section that controls the ACO duties of the police department. These officers were not prepared for this situation (or any situation involving a dog, frankly) and should never have been called to deal with it.
Are they guilt free? No. At some point, someone should have had the balls to call up their superior officer and say Look, we are NOT equipped to deal with this. Unfortunately, that did not happen. Let’s hope that Rosie’s death wakes up the people and the police of Des Moines and either the ACO starts operating 24/7 365 or the police gets a specialized, properly trained unit to deal with these situations in the future. Otherwise, there will never be an end to the Rosies.
So basically your whole argument is that police are too ignorant to do their job. Sorry. Police are acting animal control when called to a loose animal and are required to abide by state law. Period. You are never going to get the whole country to get training and have full time Animal Control. Officers come across unique situations every day that they did not get training for. They are taught basic principals and guidelines on use of force that apply any situation they come across. Frankly, because she was a dog doesn’t take away the training they already got. And, I’ll state again: people have the ability, on their own time to figure out a catch pole. He could have asked the AC officer who had tried to call him for help. He frankly didn’t care all that much. They all hold culpability but, the officer who is given a gun is 100% responsible for using it when he shouldn’t. Same with tasers. You think it’s okay to start tazing animals everywhere? It’s really not that complicated. Wrong is wrong. Know your job. Know state laws. Know the legal definition of vicious or aggressive. If this was always the case, rogue officers would always get to deflect blame up the chain. Officers know that unless exigent circumstances present themselves, they cannot use lethal force. They also know they shouldn’t aim their tazer over someone’s fence, into their private property, to shoot at a barking dog. This is WAY beyond lack of training honey. This is group think. This is officers co-signing each others bravado and bs. Good thing is, it will be going to a civil trial.
“Now let me be VERY clear here. There is a HUGE difference between incidences like this one and ones like the Golden who was shot in his own yard, or where dogs are shot while in their kennels during home invasions or when little dogs are shot for being aggressive on people’s front stoop. The shoot first, ask questions later deal that seems to permeate cop culture when it comes to dogs, particularly in the US, is a VALID problem that needs to be dealt with swiftly and with an iron fist and NO mercy to those who kill these pets for no reason.”
Because they harrassed her before killing her doesn’t make it better. So you taze a dog 3 times, throw rocks at it and then shoot her when you find a convenient place to take her out? That is LESS BAD? You cannot train for compassion. At a certain point, police who care that little, should not carry firearms. No amount of training can help people like that.
Every city and county that I have lived in has had full time Animal Control.
If Animal Control is a part of a Police Officer’s job, then they should be trained for this as they are for every other part of their job.
Officers are not just handed riot gear and expected to know how to use it. They are not handed a firearm and expected to know how to use it. They are not handed a BATON and expected to know how to use it. Why would a catch pole be any different? These officers are not receiving proper training, period. They are not ignorant, they are uninformed.
Their superiors are sending them into situations they are in NO WAY trained to handle.
as a very telling update, the witness whos yard rosie was murdered in just discovered from the dashcam video that these bozos left her gate open on their hunt. as a result her dog got out. in the video you will see a neighbor grab her dog, place him bac in her yard , and shut the gate. im sorry. no amount of training fixes stupid. her dog was let out by these policemen onto a very busy street during their safari.
I realize it’s the middle of the night and this thread may already be done, but I just finished watching the videos and am in shock. I had read the long version of the investigative report . . . yet I was not prepared for this.
It’s clear from the first video that the officers planned to shoot her from very early on. I was chilled by the perky, gregarious tone of the officer most audible throughout, as he casually discusses Rosie’s death. He’s a talker, very outgoing — he shares everything. His frustration over the inconvenience of the whole situation is very obvious, right down to his question to his fellow officers about what on earth they would do with her if they did succeed in catching her with the pole-that-did-not-work. This is a perfectly ordinary person, and yet he is talking about killing a dog in a tone no different than if he were planning what kind of sandwich he were going to have for lunch.
That same officer is the one who exclaims, “Nice!’ after the first shot. What a horrifying moment.
Awful, really awful.
Jan Magnuson is a worthless piece of trash. She cares nothing about the citizens of Des Moines. Why she is permitted to run a dog business and be the animal control officer is beyond me. This is clearly a conflict of interest. Just try calling her about a nuisance animal, such as a barking dog. She cares not a whit.
DES MOINES, Wash. — The city of Des Moines has agreed to pay at least $51,000 to a couple whose barking dog, Rosie the Newfoundland, was shot and killed by Des Moines police near its home in 2010, it was reported late Wednesday.
Read more at http://q13fox.com/2013/02/20/report-city-reaches-settlement-with-owners-of-dog-killed-by-police/#M641L0bL7cdiP4wx.99