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Police shoot and kill dog after arresting owner (Warning:graphic)


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A video of police shooting a dog to death in front of its owner has gone viral after being posted to Reddit Monday afternoon.

The dog owner, Leon Rosby, was taking video of police officers in Hawthorne, Calif. as they barricaded a house, his attorney, Michael Gulden, confirmed to HuffPost. Gulden said he plans to file a lawsuit against the Hawthorne Police Department.

Another bystander behind Rosby was recording him, and can be heard saying that Rosby asked the police why there weren't any black cops present. This drew the attention of two Hawthorne police officers, who started to approach Rosby.

Rosby can then be seen putting his dog, which looks like a Rottweiler, into his car and voluntarily putting his hands behind his back to be arrested. As he was being handcuffed by the officers, the dog started barking and jumped out of the car.

As the dog approached the officers, barking, the police shot the dog several times. Police said they had no choice but to shoot as the dog lunged toward them.

"An assisting officer came to aid and attempted to control the Rottweiler, first by gaining control of the leash," the department said in a statement on Facebook. "However, the dog lunged and made aggressive movements towards the officer(s)."

Rosby was arrested for "interference with officers" because his "loud, distracting music (from the individual's vehicle), and his intentional walking within close proximity to armed Officers, while holding an 80-pound Rottweiler on a long leash-line … created an increasingly dangerous situation and demanded officers' focus away from the matter at hand," the police statement said. Scroll down for the Hawthorne Police Department's full account of what happened.

Two hours after the video was posted to Reddit, it had 32,000 votes, but the comments were disabled because of Reddit's rule against, "witch-hunting or or incitement to witch hunt. This means no demanding 'Reddit justice' in any way in post titles or comments.

http://www.huffingto..._n_3530990.html

Absolutely sickening

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Well I honestly don't see what's wrong here. The cop did not shoot when he or she was getting yelled at to shoot as it seemed the dog was about to back off and not attack, the gun was drawn but the cop did not shoot. However when the dog did lunge forward, the cop shot. Completely understandable. The cops obviously going to shoot it if its coming at him or her, just as if a person came at the with a weapon.

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Maybe it's because I'm not a dog owner. (My sister is and we had a whole argument about this video.) I'm actually on the cops side here. I mean, they don't know how dangerous the dog is, and they didn't shoot it on sight. They shot it when it jumped up at one of them. If I was that cop, I would be terrified. Dogs are nothing to mess around with, they can be pretty dangerous, so if one lounged at me, I'm pretty sure I would take it down too.

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The man antagonized the cops and failed to secure the dog. (And gee if it isn't a pitbull.) Also looked like he's been arrested before. Also looked like this kind of activity happens a lot in that particular neighborhood.

I blame the dog owner more than the dog or the cops in this case, but it's the dog owner that is seeking damages. Typical.

Sickening incident totally avoidable if the prick just left the scene.

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Well I honestly don't see what's wrong here. The cop did not shoot when he or she was getting yelled at to shoot as it seemed the dog was about to back off and not attack, the gun was drawn but the cop did not shoot. However when the dog did lunge forward, the cop shot. Completely understandable. The cops obviously going to shoot it if its coming at him or her, just as if a person came at the with a weapon.

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1) Filming/Taking a picture of the scene is not illegal. There was no reason for an arrest to take place to begin with. Had there no been abuse of power by the officer, this entire should situation would have been avoided.

2) An officer's first call of duty is to maintain peace and diffuse situations to avoid situations such as these. I failed to see any sort of attempt to diffuse this situation, only power and ego tripping.

3) Shooting their handgun is supposed to be their last resort, not first resort. Pepper spray or a tazer should have been their first resort.

All in all, this is nothing more than a brutal realization for Hawthorne PD to realize they need to step up their training. However, it seems they refuse to acknowledge they did anything wrong as they are stating they were trying to protect the owner as he was "defenseless" to his own dog because he was handcuffed. Unnecessarily handcuffed by the police over something that simply wasn't even illegal.

That being said, I'm a dog owner and am biased at this point.

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sorry but the reason why they jailed him was ridiculous..wasnt it?

anyways...why he didnt just went home with his dog?  or closed the windows of the car when he put his dog into it?

poor dog...and hard to watch for a dogowner like me..but it seems the cop had no choice..well a teaser could have been a help

but finally it was the owners fault imo

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