Police Officer Shoots Six Year Old’s Dog Right In Front Of Her, Proves That Humanity Is Doomed
The bond between kids and their animals is a pretty powerful thing; as much as I joke about my dog being the worst, and no matter how much I call him Captain Asshole, seeing him around my daughter is a sight to behold. I don’t exaggerate even a little when I say that he might be one of her very best friends. He is devoted to her and she is totally bonkers about him.
That’s why, when I read this story about a Chicago area cop shooting and killing a non-aggressive dog in front of the six-year-old girl that loved him, my insides got all scrunchy and I got a massive, unrelenting case of the ragey sads.
The dog was a one-year-old shepherd mix named Apollo, who had gotten out of the house. According to Raw Story, what happened next is pretty horrific:
“…Apollo escaped on Friday, and the family was returning home just as officers from the Hometown Police Department were arriving.
‘We were in the lawn and the cop already had his gun out,’ Echlin explained. ‘I tried to call him in the house and he just stood there staring and I guess he showed his teeth and the cop just shot him, right in front of me and my 6-year-old daughter.’
The daughter immediately ‘started screaming,’ Echlin recalled.”
A lot of things are kind of unclear to me. Why were the police there in the first place? Neighbors said the dog wasn’t being aggressive at all, though the officer on the scene said the dog was baring its teeth.
Even if the dog was growling, is there no other way to de-escalate a situation like this one? Maybe the dog was unnerved at the officer’s aggressive stance. He was certainly a young dog, and I believe that the owners could have called him back inside, had they had that opportunity.
I think what’s most awful about this is the fact that this little girl had to see her buddy killed right in front of her, especially when you take into account what one of the neighbors who witnessed the incident described:
”The dog wasn’t doing anything. I didn’t see it doing anything, it wasn’t barking,” Nicco Torres observed. ”Then I saw a cop shoot the dog, the dog fell to ground on the lawn. I saw through the window the dog was on the floor shot but the dog was still moving, it was moving its legs like it was trying to run but it was laying down.”
How do you even attempt to explain this to a six-year-old who sees this happen to her pet? I’m not totally sure I could handle it. My dog is still young and escaped from the backyard twice through places that weren’t as sturdy as they appeared, looking for faces to lick. My daughter was terrified that we wouldn’t find him before he got cold or hungry or lonely. We recovered him quickly both times, but I can’t imagine her devastation if someone killed her pet.
The chief of police in Hometown, Illinois, where the incident took place made a statement on Facebook that said:
From Chief Forsyth. In reference to the tragic incident that occurred on Beck It would be too early for me to make any statement without reviewing all the facts.I can assure the people of ,Hometown that a full investigation of the incident will be conducted.
It is tragic, especially if what witnesses say is true and the dog was passive. It’s tragic that an innocent animal lost its very short life, and it is doubly sad that it had to happen in front of the one little person who probably loved him unconditionally.
(Image: Facebook)
