Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Texas Man Has To Put His Dog Down With Bare Hands After Deputy Shoots,

Texas Man Has To Put His Dog Down With Bare Hands After Deputy Shoots, Injures � But Refuses To Kill

Cole Middleton, who lives in rural Rains County in East Texas, dialed 911 after arriving at home last Friday morning to discover his home had been burglarized. It looked to Middleton like someone had broken in and stolen an iPad, jewelry and firearms.
A deputy arrived a while later. Middleton had joined his dad in a field to do some farm work while he waited for the sheriff�s office to respond, and, from a distance, he saw the car pull up.
According to what Middleton told KLTV News, his dog Candy � an animal that, judging from posted photos, looks like an Australian cattle dog � was in the yard when the deputy arrived. Middleton had trained her to herd cattle, and described her as a �natural� when it came to farm work. Candy was barking, as dogs tend to do in unfamiliar or exciting situations, but wasn�t acting aggressively toward the officer.
�She�s barking when he pulls into the driveway letting me know someone�s at our house, an intruder is here, or a person who she would think was an intruder that she�s unfamiliar with,� said Middleton. �She�s barking. The officer gets out of his car, and all the while we�re headed up [there]. He gets out of his car and shoots my dog in my front yard.�
Just like that, according to Middleton � without hesitation, and without cause to believe the dog posed any imminent physical danger.
Candy was wounded in the head and was in obvious distress, but the shot did not immediately kill her.
Blindsided by a completely new, abhorrent set of circumstances, Middleton�s immediate concern now was ending Candy�s suffering.
�I was so upset,� he told KLTV. �I went over there to her and she was still alive and I begged and pleaded with him to please shoot her again because I don�t have any firearms. They got stolen. He went and got in his vehicle and backed out of my driveway.�
So much for investigating the burglary � at least for that officer, whose name had not been released late Wednesday.
Left without guns, Middleton told the reporter he steeled himself to do something to end his dog�s suffering that he could never have imagined.
�I had to do the unthinkable, the otherwise unthinkable. I had to kill my dog with my bare hands and put her out of her suffering, praying for this to be over with,� he said.
At some point not long after he�d done that, other officers showed up. They saw blood on Middleton�s shirt and immediately had questions about it. Middleton said it raised their suspicions enough for them to unholster their weapons.
�That is the blood of my dog that I was holding because this deputy pulled up and shot her in my yard,� he explained. �Then the tasers were put away and the pistols withdrawn.�
Sheriff David Traylor said the Texas Rangers are investigating the incident.

I think I better not read this.

Can you just post the name of the 'officer' and town. So, no charges of cruelty?

I would hate for that scenario to play out in my front yard, I'll do my best to have my new address posted here on the fire, please send me cookies at Christmas.

Holy-Kee Riste.

Lots of dumb A-Holes running around, few would actually pull up my road and shoot my dogs. Hoping there is more to the story.

I'm struggling to recollect a personal situation that involving the police improved. Last couple times I involved the police, I was more apprehensive about dealing with them than I was with the crime I was reporting.

I am beginning to think England may be right. Cops shouldn't have guns.

What in the bloody hell?

Good grief. I'm guessing those deputies are making around $13 an hour. You can't expect rocket surgeons for that much, but surely you could find something better than that.

probably been fired from Nueces County

I donno, the kids at McDonalds seem brighter than this.

That is exactly what I think but... The shooter just took himself off of the board. He's proven that he can't handle even a small amount of stress that goes with being a Peace Officer.
He should be fired and charged with everything that the law allows. Just like police do to everyone they arrest. He then should face a civil trial.
The reason that the public is,more and more,disenchanted with the police is that they protect these people that have no business being a police officer.

That story Is crazy.


Heck, not sure what to say.... I hope that Deputy gets his a$$ handed to him.

^^This^^

The most dangerous interactions that we ordinary citizens or our dogs have are those with law enforcement. Incident after similar incident is met here with the 'one bad cop' excuse or the even more crass 'you citizens have to pay us more if you want better cops' extortion.

Nonsense these incidents are too frequent, too similar, and too scattered. The cops perpetrating them range from rookies to decorated veterans, and they come from departments that pay frugally to those in CA that pay very solidly into six figures.

Surely.

And to reenforce my point:



[img]http://cloudfront-media.reason.com/mc/ekrayewski/2014_04/elbert_KSPR.jpg?h=188&w=250[/img]

Rovering, you don't have to convince me, I've been pointing this stuff out since the mid 90's. It's unbelievable to me the number of people that have been brainwashed to accept this sh*t from this police state government. As a matter of fact, there are more than a few among us here.

The brainwashed have only a preschool "Officer Friendly" coloring book understanding of cops and law enforcement.

Here, of course, we have a pretty good population of LEOs themselves that have a vested interest in a more powerful, more intimidating, and more expensive police state.

I guess this man hasn't noticed the trend lately of family dogs being in grave danger from the police for merely doing what dogs do.

Well said.

It's the cop culture that fosters this sort of thing. The culture of the police fraternity has developed in a tyrannical direction these last thirty years or so. It's only to be expected with the increasing levels of arbitrary powers the state has granted to them over that time period, and the increase in their numbers and privileged status vs regular folks.

One glaring illustration of this is the difference in the way the police reacted to regular folks (vs the way they'd react today) pulling rifles from their trunks to fire back at Charles Whitman back in 1966, i.e., the tower sniper at the University of Texas. If the very same thing happened today, the first non-cop to pull a rifle from his trunk to render aid would be shot on sight by the cops at the scene.