K-9 shot, killed after it bit child...Sheriff's office dog 'went crazy'

Apparently the posse comitatus forum is down right now. I couldn't start a new thread there so I figured the next best place would be this forum, after all this is a "social issue" as well.

Ok....please bear with me. I am going to attempt to get this story posted but it may take me some time (I am not very familiar with adding content outside of links and videos to this site but I am sure that with a bit of help I can get it done).

The problem with this story is that I can't seem to find it online and it appears that the local PD is all to willing to whitewash and bury this one as deeply and silently as possible (you can surely see why when you read it). Let's see if I can get these images to upload. I took some pics of the local newspaper that posted this story....the ONLY one, might I add. Outside of this one article on the front page of this one small paper (like small like one man small) this story is dead as can be here in the local area and outside those who read "The Voice" non that I have asked are yet to hear a word about it.

Front page picture 1


Front page picture 2


continued article....will post two of it. I realize it is a bit hard to read but my cell doesn't take the best photos and I am working with what I've got here so.....again, bear with me for the sake of the story here.




When it comes to research and the ability to find stories and the like online, I pride myself on that. This one has escaped me and I am not so sure it is me. I believe local media is suppressing this story and even this article (the only paper in the area to carry the story) is whitewashing it by claiming this K9 to simply be a "Buchanan County Sheriff's Office K9" and making absolutely no mention of the officer that was in charge of that WEAPON.

What I would expect is for the officer that was in charge of this K9 to be reprimanded, be it suspension without pay or terminated. There is absolutely NO excuse for leaving this K9, who had previously shown aggressive behavior towards the child that was subsequently attacked, unattended and without leash while this cop was doing whatever it was he was doing in his house......No excuse.

(Will add more during the thread.....wrists acting up from trying to get all this posted)

Oh...almost forgot to add....This happened in Buchanan County Virginia...

a reply to: Jakal26

Interesting in that I googled it and your thread has been indexed by google already but I can't find nothing either. I checked local news sites and there is nothing, I even checked The Voice facebook page and nothing. Kind of weird really. It appears to be a coal mining area, with a lot of violence and drug problems. I can say being a Virginia resident our local paper only carries what has happened locally, the world would blow up and it would never show in the gazette.

Good research I will check again tomorrow, and a few other local places.

I read and glanced over the post, what happened to the "victims"? I love dogs but if it did as the article said than the victims shall better not be held accountable. It would be nice if when human cops go nuts, they are able to be put down as well with no repercussion. A wild entity is a wild entity regardless of species.
Firepiston

I am still searching and coming up empty on any articles....Hell, I'm coming up empty finding this thing on the radar period! I don't even see locals on topix and fb talking about it. I've searched keywords and read semi-moronic conversations about nothingness looking for a single blip about this until I am sick of doing so. Very nice job they have done trying to make this go away (so it seems).

I suppose it is just one of those "things that happens" in their eyes......perhaps the locals don't care enough to make a fuss?
The county I live in is connected to Buchanan county so I am not "a local" but this story is close enough to home (literally a few minutes drive and I am very familiar with the area...have spent significant amounts of time there) for me to make some noise about it. If this situation was the other way around....well, I think enough stories come across the eyes of ATS members for me not to have to explain what I am getting at. (I am sure I am not the only one that sees the issue here)

I have also considered direct contact with the sheriff's department. For now I prefer to stay off their "radar".....until more information can be gleaned anyways. This is a small place and the "good ole boy"...."taking care of their own" system of things are how things operate for the most part. Poor education and poverty, drug problems and the war waged against those who use drugs, coupled with the corruption (both instances of factual occurrence and corruption gossiped about by locals...corruption that equals fear to many...fear equals don't "buck the system" because they will frame you) inside aforementioned organization keeps the mouth's of many shut in this area, if one catches my drift. I'd rather get my facts COMPLETELY straight before I stick my neck out any distance. Around here it isn't so hard to catch a bs charge of some type....that is, if the PD boys want you to. Not much you can do when on a back road in the middle of nowhere land alone with deputy corruption. Those that claim a variety of things "they would do" have no clue what they are talking about or have never "been there done that".....the few that have and walked away, I commend you, you are few and far between. That is, at least in my neck of the woods.

(Checked the thread before posting this in case it was going anywhere....didn't want to derail my own thread. Guess not.....establishment of direct contact with this department is looking more and more like the only possible way I am going to get anything beside this one article from a local paper)

originally posted by: Jakal26
I am still searching and coming up empty on any articles....Hell, I'm coming up empty finding this thing on the radar period! I don't even see locals on topix and fb talking about it. I've searched keywords and read semi-moronic conversations about nothingness looking for a single blip about this until I am sick of doing so. Very nice job they have done trying to make this go away (so it seems).

I suppose it is just one of those "things that happens" in their eyes......perhaps the locals don't care enough to make a fuss?
The county I live in is connected to Buchanan county so I am not "a local" but this story is close enough to home (literally a few minutes drive and I am very familiar with the area...have spent significant amounts of time there) for me to make some noise about it. If this situation was the other way around....well, I think enough stories come across the eyes of ATS members for me not to have to explain what I am getting at. (I am sure I am not the only one that sees the issue here)

I have also considered direct contact with the sheriff's department. For now I prefer to stay off their "radar".....until more information can be gleaned anyways. This is a small place and the "good ole boy"...."taking care of their own" system of things are how things operate for the most part. Poor education and poverty, drug problems and the war waged against those who use drugs, coupled with the corruption (both instances of factual occurrence and corruption gossiped about by locals...corruption that equals fear to many...fear equals don't "buck the system" because they will frame you) inside aforementioned organization keeps the mouth's of many shut in this area, if one catches my drift. I'd rather get my facts COMPLETELY straight before I stick my neck out any distance. Around here it isn't so hard to catch a bs charge of some type....that is, if the PD boys want you to. Not much you can do when on a back road in the middle of nowhere land alone with deputy corruption. Those that claim a variety of things "they would do" have no clue what they are talking about or have never "been there done that".....the few that have and walked away, I commend you, you are few and far between. That is, at least in my neck of the woods.

(Checked the thread before posting this in case it was going anywhere....didn't want to derail my own thread. Guess not.....establishment of direct contact with this department is looking more and more like the only possible way I am going to get anything beside this one article from a local paper)

I am guessing the reason why you cannot find anymore info on it is because they are embarressed.

a reply to: MarlinGrace

Yes....this area is a coal mining area and the drug problems are bad but have been worse in the past. How all that came to be and the corruption, from Purdue pharma (makers of Oxycontin) to local PD (Buchanan, Bland, Tazewell, Mercer counties...and others, those are just very local to me) within the context of the "Oxy scandal" (as I am coining it for lack of willingness to better describe it all) is a story all it's own and a good discussion for a thread of it's own (or a few threads).

The violence....domestic disputes and drug related violence. Take away those two factors and it's basically non-existent. Very few murders, robberies, and other violent crimes here.....very few. (I sleep with unlocked doors many nights...of course I have dogs and guns but that is besides the point )

a reply to: FirePiston

TOO BAD! Embarrassed is not good enough for me. An 8 year old child could have been killed by this weapon that happened to be a dog. It is a trained machine. I need not say that for others to know these dogs are highly trained for various tasks.....attack being one of them. Being one of relatively few K9 units in the area, I would assume this dog is well rounded and was suited for a variety of tasks and wasn't just a "specialist" type dog. I would assume many of them are but that would be an assumption because I am not certain about the facts or the training.

I want answers as to WHY this dog wasn't on a leash and more importantly, WHY the officer in charge of this dog is not being reprimanded. If he is they aren't telling and if he was, they would tell.....period. They are whitewashing it. They have every reason to be embarrassed but if action is not taken against the officer in charge of that K9 then there should be further embarrassment, public shame (have to have awareness of it for that...I'm working on it...lol) and IF the sheriff is helping whitewash it or isn't holding his deputies accountable then I want HIM reprimanded. Hopefully by being removed from his position.

I won't stop until I get answers.....I brought it here because of the research skills I know the membership here has. We will see.....Like I said, I WILL get answers. (I can be a stubborn ole bastard at times and right is right)

Oh...to answer your question about the victims. The boy was taken to a children's hospital, the mother to a local hospital (was released the same day I think) and the father was not charged with anything....as far as I know. Again, the article pictured in the OP is the only source of info I have at all. No updates and can't find locals chatting about or even mentioning it. It seems they have kept it quite hush hush.

"The Voice" is a local paper that does print many things others won't or are afraid to. They don't whitewash everything but it seems they certainly like to keep their "connections" to other stories by having buddies in the PD. They whitewash this one well and even though I respect that they printed it when no one else did, I don't respect the sugar coating and covering up of guilty party(s).

Very interesting find. I too would think this would have much more coverage.

Isn't shooting/killing a K-9 about the same equivalent in law as shooting a human police officer?

a reply to: Philippines

Very often, one will receive more time for killing a K9 unit than one will receive for killing its human counterpart.
In this case, given that what is in the article is correct information, the shooting was obviously justified.

However, that does not negate the fact that like you, I would think this would be a headline in more than just this one particular paper. The paper in focus, "The Voice", is not known for publishing completely false information and given the published date there would have been plenty of time for backlash by now. Small towns generally equate to everyone knowing basically everything about everyone else....lots of gossip and rumors, etc etc. None of that. Strange, really.

I posted a question to the Buchanan county topics news forum. I am about to go back to check for updates on that as well.
If I cannot find anything further by mid-day today (0400 here right now) I will directly contact BCSD.

THis is just over the hills from me here in Lynchburg. This should have been a top local news story yet this is the first I've heard of it. I agree the officer in charge of the k9 needs to be named, shamed and blamed. You don't leave a loaded weapon around or a powerful animal trained to attack. Someone is responsible.

Simply a bad handler, this is pretty much par for the course though.
K9's should not be "cops".
Just another form of slavery, and after we humans are done sometimes these 4 legged friends are put down.
Either because of financial reasons or the dogs are too violent at that point.
Shame on us and those who exploit.
Any one of my dogs is better than a match for any 2 legged unarmed prey but my saying goes, "doggies don't fight".
And this is what the coward cops do with what should be their bestest buddies, throw them at harm.
I would never allow my dogs to be put in any kind of danger as they are my best buddies and are definitely family members.

a reply to: Asktheanimals

Yes....I know the Lynchburg area a little bit, not overly familiar but a bit.

the officer in charge of the k9 needs to be named, shamed and blamed. You don't leave a loaded weapon around or a powerful animal trained to attack. Someone is responsible.

I am about to start working on an open letter to them, I intend to post it their fb page. It is the website they have. Their contact info is here for others who would potentially like to voice their opinion on the matter to the sheriff and the department.

I have thought about it a bit over the course of the night and feel that I need to make it public as well as directly contacting them. I just don't trust them enough (call me paranoid) given my proximity and the aforementioned "good ole boy" system that is prevalent in this area. More contact means more risk. The more direct....well, one gets the idea I am sure.

This is an issue of the officer, whom as we both agree, needs to be identified to the public and shamed. He also needs to be punished in some fashion. Given the place that this situation went and where it could have went one would be well within reason to assume or demand he lose his job. I am not sure I would go that far. Not with the information I have. He should NOT be in charge and in care of a K9 unit, that is for damn sure. To determine if he should lose his job one would need to know his history. That would make a lot of difference....imo.

This could also possibly be a department/dog training/dog handling and care/other problem. That also needs to be addressed here.
One would think that this K9 would have to be leashed and maybe this officer was/is lazy about following policy.
We don't have leash laws outside of town limits.....I SERIOUSLY doubt that Buchanan (outside of town/city limits) has leash laws and if they do I imagine they are lackadaisical, to say the least. They are in my area, and that area is more sparsely populated and less town/city more country region than Tazewell county.

That really shouldn't have anything at all to do with leashing this K9. It cannot be considered "a dog" can it? After it is trained, one would think it is no longer "just a dog". It is a weapon! And this weapon lashed out at a child. It is tantamount to this cop leaving a loaded gun in his back yard. Except this loaded gun didn't just "lay there"....on it's own accord it decided to attack an 8 year old boy, not just once but numerous times.

Given the information in the article and the description of the K9 circling the house and trying to find entrance, I truly believe it was looking to kill him. Maybe not in those certain terms, but surely to "subdue"......(as it had been trained?)

Why did this K9 decide to attack this boy so violently that it would attack numerous people willing to fight it, to get to the child? Even provoked, a dog generally bites....even a few times, and is done.

originally posted by: g146541
Simply a bad handler, this is pretty much par for the course though.
K9's should not be "cops".
Just another form of slavery, and after we humans are done sometimes these 4 legged friends are put down.
Either because of financial reasons or the dogs are too violent at that point.
Shame on us and those who exploit.
Any one of my dogs is better than a match for any 2 legged unarmed prey but my saying goes, "doggies don't fight".
And this is what the coward cops do with what should be their bestest buddies, throw them at harm.
I would never allow my dogs to be put in any kind of danger as they are my best buddies and are definitely family members.

Yes, yes, and YES!
I agree completely.

Having said that, in the world in which we live....sadly, as you know, this isn't the case. Us humans utilize, exploit, and then throw away (like objectified garbage we are done with) other sentient beings, often without regard to that beings consciousness, feelings, or inalienable right not to be enslaved by a more "advanced" species that is FAR less advanced in more ways than need to be spoken. We should be ashamed (some of us sometimes empathize and feel a tiny amount of that "pain"...."align" ourselves with that pain....besides not funding or participating it is all one can do...all I know of anyways) of the way we treat them. Most are not.

I don't necessarily think we should never utilize animals. However, that relationship should be symbiotic, not enslavement. We should know better and DO better. The moral backbone of the human race is generally frail and yellow in this regard. Others are apathetic, thus feeding the aforementioned. Maybe one day the balance will shift. Hope....and all that

My point is, if they are going to utilize these "service dogs" then WE should be privy to all the training and the handlers should be held accountable (really ten-fold accountable) for happenings such as this. That is my point.....this whitewashing is going to work, the public needs to know what happened and then some of us need to start demanding to know details about where these animals are kept, if they are dangerous..........in our own yards we should not fear a K9 "service dog", trained to attack. If and when it might occur........Accountability!

A trained attack dog is really no different than a trained attack human and considering it cannot communicate it's intentions to it's so called handler in any direct and clearly understandable way it certainly shouldn't be magically protected by laws that protect it and it's handler from liability when that trained thing does something that damages another.

I have a neighbor about 250 yards away from where I sit right now who has two dogs he claims are drug dogs or used by the K-9 guys or whatever, I really think he's just a scaredy cat that tells stories to make himself feel safer from...whatever...

But this guy moves into a house directly adjoining the property I occupy and simply puts "beware of dog" signs out instead of putting up a fence while he has some really big german shepherds wandering around his yard with his little kids playing there with no adult in sight whatsoever most of the time.

I have kept dogs for at least the past 20 years and know from experience they have bad days just like anything else, I have been bitten several times by several different dogs over the years, and believe it or not, all of those bites were accidental as in if the dog was not on a leash tied to me I would not have been bitten while the dogs fought with other dogs that were running free.

I don't care what kind of dog it is, the goddamned thing needs to be under control at all times and the department and handler of this dog should be held fully accountable and liable for any damages arising from this incident, as my neighbor will be one way or the other if his dogs wander too far and conduct themselves in a threatening fashion.

A dog without a human controller is a dog wandering around in a threatening fashion.

It's not like you can ask it what he or she is doing wandering around your space like you can a person now, is it?, but then you can go to prison for life for defending yourself and your loved ones and property for dealing with it....

Things develop a taste for certain things after a time just like I did when I was in the military, which was the reason I got myself the hell out of the military....

Some things are just so WRONG!!!....

Anyway....

Some police people have been killed when serving no knock warrants lately and the person was justified for the shooting in at least one case, maybe this crazy stuff with police dogs being above reproach is about to change also, as it should be.

Another issue is it was a child that was injured, if it had been you or I the attack would have been justified, you or I would have been brought up on some bogus charge to justify the dog attack somehow and charged with killing a police officer...

Then, another issue, how the # does one take the testimony of an entity that cannot communicate to the court in a suit or trial, is it secondhand testimony of the handler who cannot possibly keep up with the canine when set free?.

FLAKY!!!!!

a reply to: MyHappyDogShiner
Agreed!!
A free roaming dog is no better than a wolf, and many just revert to the feral instincts that we humans can and do suppress with just some love, structure and a good fence!
Good looking avatar btw.

Do people really have to shoot down dogs after they bite people? Really? It happens... maybe the lady smelled like funny (for those of you that havent seen the movie "Paulette") - who knows - but shooting the dog down? Come on...

If the animal won't stop attacking, should it be treated differently than a human that won't stop attacking ?.

I have noticed that people treat their pets more humanely than they do each other in this world.

There is something fundamentally amiss here and there and everywhere...

I don't like killing anything, but sometimes it is necessary.

If one does not actively try to avoid things they would rather not have happen, they passively accept them.

We have become passive, we are to blame for all of the bad that happens we don't actively strive to avoid.

a reply to: FraternitasSaturni

a reply to: Jakal26

It's not on the internet. Although it appears you have two choices which officer it was:

Sheriffs Office Public Photo

The cop who left his dog unsecured should loose his job and they are responsible for paying that families medical... I hope they do all that.

Maybe we can try and do our own follow up piece, asking the family and such. It's real sad when people are hurt through the negligence of others.

a reply to: OpinionatedB

At this time I have already sent an email (with the same photos of the article I posted here) to the BCSD. I also posted that same letter to their fb page in hopes that locals see it and start to ask questions that apparently aren't being asked at this time. I asked them for answers and the departments' version of events. Regardless, apparently the dog was not leashed. That is problem number one that needs to be addressed.

I suppose I'm going this one semi-alone, lol. I generally wouldn't push it so hard but I have to think.....what if that had been young children in my family or my nephews. I would be raising hell. I am going to find a way to contact the family. I will post some follow up. I also intend to get in contact with the guy who wrote the article in "The Voice".....I want to assure myself that there isn't a "sensational nature" to the story....again, REGARDLESS, the dog was not leashed and the cop deserves to lose that post.....I agree.

ETA: Thank you for the link to that photograph of all the BCSD employees. I was overlooking that somehow....lost in the mix apparently.

Anyways, can you read the name of the officer with the dog....there are two....not "Rick Jackson"...the one to the left of your view when looking at the photo. I cannot make it out, it is too blurry.

Anyone?

Here's my opinion of the cop who is partnered with this now thankfully dead, vicious K-9. He's a lazy, irresponsible dog owner just like so many others who are not cops. Having had a German Shepard when I was a young boy, I can tell you 1st hand that when they do # 2 it is a big mess. So I think this lazy cop was in the habit of letting his dog out to do his "duty" on other peoples property. Probably by leaving a gate open if the moron even has a fenced in yard, which he should since he keeps a dangerous animal on his premises.

Therefore the K-9 starts getting the impression that neighboring yards that he's been allowed to crap upon are all his territory! You know how animals mark their turf? They either urinate or crap on it. I have a mental picture of the cop who was in charge of this killing machine, but I would really like a confirmation from a responsible party of this individuals identity. He should at the very least be removed from the K-9 program. Maybe that was the problem, he just wasn't thrilled having all the extra responsibility.

I feel it will be worth trying to contact these Keystone Cops and see what they have to say for themselves. I'll probably be ignored but I will try anyway... I wonder where all the cop loyalists are who always defend their outrageous acts by playing the devil's advocate?