An Austin police officer who responded to the wrong house on a domestic disturbance call is accused of fatally shooting an innocent man’s dog.
The dog’s owner, Michael Paxton, was playing Frisbee with the Blue Heeler, named Cisco, on Saturday afternoon when the officer entered his home, ABC reported.
“While I was at gunpoint, my dog came from my backyard barking at the officer,” Paxton wrote on the “Justice For Cisco” Facebook page. “I yelled for the officer to not shoot my dog, that he will not bite, but the officer immediately shot and killed my dog right in front of me.”
As of Tuesday afternoon, the Facebook page had 43,262 “Likes.”
“I was unable to stop or restrain Cisco because I was being held at gunpoint,” Paxton also said.
Austin Police Department Sergeant David Daniels said that the officer, Thomas Griffin, is “distraught” by the incident, according to NBC.
Paxton’s neighbors admitted that they had been fighting at the time that officers were looking for their residence, the Austin American-Statesman reported.
Seems to me like the officer went in without talking to the resident first when he came out from the yard. looking at the length of the driveway, the officer would have been well away from the person when he made initial contact and just seemed to assume that the person was the guilty party. You can also clearly hear in the 911 call that the person says the people are standing out in front of the residence, not behind it.
Seems to me like the officer prejudged the situation and rushed into it.
Wife was telling me about this story yesterday. As someone who’s had dogs around them their whole life, it’s really saddening (and equally frustrating) to hear.
If you shoot and kill a police dog it’s the same as shooting an officer. Should shooting someone’s dog be the same as shooting them? I think so. F*cking cop is a pussy.
I’d be upset if someone (a cop for example) kicked in my door, pointed a gun at me mistakenly and shot my dog for no reason. My bad, wrong house… oops!
A man runs into the vet’s office carrying his dog, screaming for help. The vet rushes him back to an examination room and has him put his dog down on the examination table. The vet examines the still, limp body and after a few moments tells the man that his dog, regrettably, is dead. The man, clearly agitated and not willing to accept this, demands a second opinion.
The vet goes into the back room and comes out with a cat and puts the cat down next to the dog’s body. The cat sniffs the body, walks from head to tail poking and sniffing the dog’s body and finally looks at the vet and meows. The vet looks at the man and says, “I’m sorry, but the cat thinks that your dog is dead too.”
The man is still unwilling to accept that his dog is dead.
The vet brings in a black Labrador. The lab sniffs the body, walks from head to tail, and finally looks at the vet and barks. The vet looks at the man and says, “I’m sorry, but the lab thinks your dog is dead too.”
The man, finally resigned to the diagnosis, thanks the vet and asks how much he owes. The vet answers, “$650.”
“$650 to tell me my dog is dead?” exclaimed the man…
“Well,” the vet replies, “I would only have charged you $50 for my initial diagnosis. The additional $600 was for the cat scan and lab tests.”
