As a crowd of customers looked on in horror the afternoon of June 1, an off-duty Los Angeles Police Department officer shot a pit bull inside the popular Ghirardelli Soda Fountain & Chocolate Shop on Hollywood Boulevard.
The pit bull had bitten the officer and a security guard after his owner became confrontational. "The dog was so frantic from being yanked and everything, it's no wonder that he bit somebody," one witness told KCBS.
Six days before this shooting, a pit bull was shot and killed by another off-duty LAPD officer who was moonlighting as a security guard near a downtown filming location.
The LAPD says the pit bull was aggressive and attacked the officer, but some witnesses say that wasn't the case. Emry Zumreet, the dog's owner, was driving down busy South Main Street when he was stopped by the off-duty officer, who was blocking traffic for the filming of a TV show. Zumreet apparently got into an argument with the officer, who opened his car door. When Zumreet got out of his car, his pit bull jumped out after him. Although a witness said the dog was only growling, the officer said he was being attacked, so he killed the dog.
The two off-duty LAPD officers may have believed the dogs were putting them in danger, but they put many other people in greater danger by firing their guns in busy public places.
A dog is shot by a law enforcement officer every 98 minutes in the United States. Many of these shootings are by officers who've had no training in how to humanely deal with aggressive dogs.
These two cases illustrate why LAPD officers need training in animal behavior and non-lethal ways to protect themselves and others, such as pepper spray, batons and tasers.
To address the needs of law enforcement when encountering dogs in the course of their duties, the Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, Los Angeles (spcaLA) offers a class called “Dog Behavior for Law Enforcement” to all police departments in California.
To prevent more dogs from getting shot and the possibility of bystanders also getting hurt, please sign and share this petition asking the LAPD to ensure every officer takes spcaLA's class or is otherwise trained in non-lethal ways to deal with aggressive dogs.
