LAPD Shoots Another Innocent Victim

Weather as metaphor: It is currently pouring buckets and buckets of rain in Los Angeles, and for the Los Angeles Police Department when it rains, it pours ("Police Shooting of Dog Sparks Anger"):

On Wednesday, a Los Angeles police officer shot
[Teri, a 10-year-old pit bull] in front of the gate to
[the dog's owner's] makeshift home. A city animal
control officer said Teri died on the way to a clinic.

Police assert that the 70-pound dog attacked a
column of four bicycle patrol officers riding
through the alley west of Mateo Street.
The last officer in line, 10-year-veteran
Gina Iglesias, fired the fatal shot "fearing for her
safety," police said Friday.

...

"The apparently startled dog bared its teeth and
attacked," officials said in a statement. None of the
officers was injured; Iglesias, who is assigned to
the Newton station, has been temporarily taken
off field duty while a routine investigation into
the shooting takes place, police said.

...

Others who work nearby also said they doubted
that the 10-year-old pit bull posed a serious threat
to the officers.

"She was never aggressive. I never even heard her
growl. There's no way she would attack," said
Michael Faye, a photographer whose studio is
nearby and who had known the dog for three years.

Mark Helf, an art director working at the studio on
a sportswear advertising photo shoot, described
the scene as heart-wrenching.

"They wouldn't let Benny go to his dog, even to put
a compress on the wound. He had to basically
watch his dog bleed to death and die over a
two-hour period.

"I heard Benny plead, 'Please, please shoot my dog,
put it out of its misery.' They wouldn't even do
that," Helf said.

Josephs, who heard the gunshot but did not see the
shooting, said he tried to aid his wounded dog but
was blocked by police.

"Teri tried to get up and kept falling down. They
wouldn't let me help her," he said.

...

[Lori Weise] believes the officer's actions were
excessive and dangerous to the entire
neighborhood."If they felt threatened, why
didn't they just Mace her?" Weise said. "Postmen
do it every day."

There is something seriously wrong with the training of police officers if they "fear for their safety" when faced with developmentally delayed teen aged boys, joy-riding eighth graders, and old dogs. Dayum!