St. Louis Cop Accidentally Shoots Partner While Aiming At Dog
BY Herschel Smith
11 years, 4 months ago
From Radley Balko, via WRSA, a St. Louis cop accidentally shoots his partner while aiming at a dog.
An officer with the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department suffered minor injuries after he was accidentally wounded by his partner Thursday morning in a south city neighborhood.
The incident occurred around 11:20 a.m. in the 3700 block of Keokuk Street, located in the Dutchtown South neighborhood.
Two officers were responding to a call regarding copper thefts in the neighborhood and were approached by what they said was an aggressive dog showing its teeth. One of the officers, fearing for his safety, pulled out his gun and fired three or four shots at the dog. One of the bullets missed the animal, ricocheted off the sidewalk and struck his partner in the arm near his elbow.
The wounded officer was taken to Saint Louis University Hospital to be treated.
The dog, species unknown, ran away and police are not sure if it was wounded.
Police are searching for the dog’s owner.
As I’ve said before, the notion that unholstering and discharging a firearm should be the option of first resort is preposterous. Owners of large dogs (like me) know this, and if police haven’t been trained to deal with animals or are too fearful to do it, they shouldn’t have a job in law enforcement.
Body language, stern voice commands, OC spray and other options can and should be used to handle animals before resorting to killing another living being. But then, that’s true of SWAT teams and their home invasions too, no?
And best of all, when the officer was down and the other was attending to him, what did the dog do because of the loud noise? Run off. I guess the dog wasn’t such a threat after all.
On July 14, 2013 at 1:13 am, DAN III said:
Here we go again….”officer safety”. The good Lord works in strange ways.
On July 14, 2013 at 11:42 am, Mr Galt said:
You should retitle this one “Feel Good Story of the Day”.