Liberty Minute October 28 2013

Any encounter with a strange dog can leave a person unsettled. This is true of postal carriers, private delivery and service personnel, and police officers. But only cops consider themselves entitled to shoot dogs on sight.

Police in Boise shot and killed a dog named Kita on October 20. The officers claimed that the dog threatened them. The dog?s owner, Gabrielle Stropkai, said that the officers shot it in the back of the head. Eyewitness Bryan Adams said that the dog barked a couple of times and didn?t jump at the officers. The encounter lasted no more than five seconds.

Significantly, Kita was nursing six two-week-old puppies at the time she was shot. According to Stropkai, the Boise Police Department told her they wouldn?t even bother to investigate the actions of its officers, because the reflexive destruction of her dog is within department policy.

We never hear or read about people who provide useful services being ?forced? to defend themselves against supposedly aggressive dogs by killing them. Yet police do this every day.

The critical variable is NOT the behavior of the dog, but the sense of impunity granted to police officers. They don't shoot dogs because they have to, but because they can.

Let us take back the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free.