Cowards with guns

[RabidGibbon]

The article doesn't make clear if the officer wielding the shotgun was in the car or not when he fired.
This extract seems to imply the officers took part in a kind of drive/stop by shooting

Posted bt First Article

She saw a Mount Olive Police Department cruiser pull up to the house behind hers.

Then she noticed the shotgun in one of the officer's hands, aimed at her neighbor's 45-pound Labrador retriever.

"I said, 'Please don't shoot that dog. He won't hurt you,'" Mrs. Kulers said.

The officer looked at her, then back at the dog.

A shot rang out -- then, another.

Its possible the officer was out of the vehicle at the time - after all its hard to see how he could be threatened by the dog otherwise, but then given the tale of the mayor whose house was stormed by police men who'd decided to dress up like commandos and who then chased down and shot his dogs it seems like perhaps the police guide lines on shooting dogs are a bit too lax?

However to counterbalance this, I was watching one of those fly on the wall documentaries about police men. An officer was being chased by a dog and he was backing off like crazy with his gun pointed at it, and even my liberal anti establishment dog loving soul thought "why doesn't he just shoot it?" but then his policeman buddy zapped it with a taser and it just went "Yiiiiiiiiiiip!" and took off.

So I suspect some cops realise that its free fire zone on dogs, whilst others are calm and considerate on the subject. I'd like to say the answer is better training and selection, but better training and selection is probably the answer to every government recruitment problem.