"the dog started it"

[kpete]

Ohio man challenging law on teasing police dogs

– Fri Apr 22, 11:23 am ET
MASON, Ohio – A southwest Ohio man charged with teasing a police dog by barking at it says a city law violates free speech.

The Cincinnati Enquirer reports the attorney for 25-year-old Ryan James Stephens says his client was not striking the animal in suburban Mason. Lawyer Jim Hardin says barking may not be seen as intelligent speech but is "still speech." He questions the validity of a city law that bars taunting police dogs.

A police officer investigating a car crash at a pub on April 3 reported he heard the dog barking uncontrollably. The officer said he found Stephens making barking noises and hissing at a dog inside the police car.

The officer's report quoted Stephens as saying "the dog started it" and said the man appeared highly intoxicated.

more:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110422/ap_on_fe_st/us_odd_police_dog_teasing

[msongs]

1. contrary to propaganda peddled at schools the police are not your "friends" and should only

be treated with extreme caution

[MineralMan]

3. It depends on the situation in which you encounter the police,

I think. They've been helpful to me a number of times, and I've never had a negative encounter with a law enforcement officer.

Odd, isn't it?

Here's an example: My father-in-law, when he was quite ill, fell in the hallway of his house. At the time, he weighed almost 300 lb. Due to the restricted area, I could not get him on his feet. He had serious weakness in his legs, which prevented him from being of much help. So, I called 911. Two cops showed up in less than two minutes. Younger and stronger than I am, they quickly picked up my FIL and got him on his feet. They evaluated his condition, and then left, after being thanked by me, my wife, and my mother-in-law.

The entire time, they were polite, helpful, and quick to find a solution to a difficult situation.

Now, how should I have treated them? What do you think?

[1monster]

6. And then there was the elderly man who fell in his front yard and was helped into his home by his

wife who then called 911 because he had a hearat condition too. And two cops came in as the Rescue workers were leaving, and demanded the the elderly man come with them to the hopital. When the man refused (people are allowed to refuse medical treatment, which he obviously did not as they 911 Rescue workers had already treated him), the officers tazed him.

Some LEOs are terrific people, others are horrible, and others are some mixture of both. Caution is always advisable.

In my experience, most cops are freaking liars who make wall to wall carpets seem like rank amateurs, but who also can act with great courage in the face of danger, or absolute cowardice under the same conditions. Caution is always advisable.

But gratitude for good service when you are in need is not inappropriate.

edits: can't spell worth a damn this a.m.

[MineralMan]

7. Perhaps you can give an account of incidents in which you`

were directly involved that make you distrust police officers in general.

It's easy enough to find isolated incidents in news accounts of almost anything. How have you been affected by the police? Personal accounts are always more pertinent to the discussion.

You can describe an incident where the police over-reacted. I can counter with accounts of police heroism. The entire range of human behavior is represented by police officers, as it is by any identifiable group of humans.

What is your evidence that "most cops are freaking liars who make wall to wall carpets seem like rank amateurs?" The key word in that statement is "most." I'll eagerly anticipate your reply.

[Aerows]

15. I've had two bad experiences, both were with the NOPD

In one, I got in a wreck on the overpass, and waited for 15 minutes for the cops to arrive (which is what you are supposed to do when you have a wreck, right? Call the police). The police ordered us off the ramp, and told us to handle it since no one was injured. He took no report. I exited the ramp and ended up in a neighborhood which was extremely bad, and considering that I am a petite blond woman, it really was not the place for me to be. I exchanged insurance information and driver's license information with the woman I was involved in the wreck with, since that's was what I was ordered to do, and left.

I hadn't EVEN got over the GNO bridge and back to the business on the Westbank Expressway (not far, but not in Orleans Parish anymore, either) before I got a call from the NOPD threatening to arrest me for hit and run. I explained what happened. They told me to stay where I was. Now mind you, they knew exactly how to find me, since they had all the numbers and my information. The showed up, out of jurisdiction, threatening again to arrest me. My purse was in my car, along with my driver's license that they demanded. Two HUGE NOPD officers, OUT OF JURISDICTION, escorted me to my vehicle, now mind you, I'm at my place of business - like I was a criminal, so that I could retrieve my purse. At that point, I had to call the Gretna police, whose jurisdiction it WAS in, to help mediate the situation, because they were literally scaring the hell out of me, not to mention embarrassing me at a place of business. When you have to call other police to protect you FROM police, you know it's bad.

Second incident:

I was at a club with my girlfriend, and she was being harassed and hit on by a guy. We went outside for a few minutes along with some other people from the club, and the guy kept after her. I told him to leave her alone. He looked coked up and drunk. He whipped out an NOPD ID card & badge and threatened to arrest me for I don't know what, I guess telling him to leave my girlfriend alone, who also stated plainly she wanted nothing to do with him. We went back inside of the club shaking with fear, because he started screaming, and very plainly was attempting, along with his friend, to intimidate my girlfriend into being with him or he would arrest me. Finally, the club owner intervened.

On the other hand, I've had police officers in different parts of the country be respectful, helpful and courteous. It really depends on where you are.

[MineralMan]

18. Thanks for your accounts. I've had no experience in New Orleans,

other than passing through there one time.

[Aerows]

21. I'm not much of a troublemaker

But I have had speeding tickets, and have had occasion to come in contact with the police. I'll be perfectly frank - I lived in Houston, TX for a while, and for all that people say that the police in Texas are bad, they are *pleasant* compared to the NOPD.

It's kind of unsurprising that things turned out as they did during Katrina, because there is a LOT of corruption.

[Yo_Mama]

30. I heard that from a friend who had lived in NO

That the police were terrible.

[1monster]

22. Examples? No details because those who were lied to have not yet

decided which remedies to pursue.

LEO telling homeowners that they do not have a choice in the matter when the LEO wanted to enter the home without a warrant and did so after homeowners told the LEOs they were not welcome inside their home.

LEOs lying about the originators of an arrest warrant in order to deny a mentally incompetent person of his/her rights by telling caretakers they were merely transporting the arrestee to another city and could call to find out where the arrestte was and his/her status by calling in two hours. In the meantime, the mentally incompetent person (who did not understand his/her rights and the arresting officers knew the arrestee did not understand) was lied to and told that "things will go easier for you if you talk to a detective. The caretakers were seeking a lawyer from another jurisdiction while arrestee was being interrogated by detective.

There are other examples, but these were egregious.

By the way, my father was a cop. My neighbor for sixteen years was the sheriff of the county. Wonerful neighbor and good sheriff (the best sheriff in the 36 years I've lived here), but still with that "cop attitude" toward accused -- guilty regardless of new evidence --.

I stand by what I wrote above. Alway use caution.

[gristy]

24. So you were the victim in neither of these incidents?

So all your direct interaction with the police has been positive? Or at least not negative?

I suggest you consider Mineral Man's valid point.

[1monster]

27. I said no details and I meant no details. Or, in other words,

NONE OF YOUR FREAKING BUSINESS!

I am a direct witness of these events and that should be enough for you or anyone else.

And my point was to ALWAYS use caution. I did not say all cops were evil. I said use caution.

And no, all of my personal direct official interaction with LEOs have not been positive. The ticket I got for running a red light that was just turned yellow when I entered the intersection; being stopped with three other people in the car (I wasn't driving) because we stopped four miles earlier for 15 to 20 minutes for conversation! at an Atlantic Ocean veiwing point after work one night. We had twenty year old Sheriff's Explorer in the car with us and he was petrified. When I asked him why were were being stopped (We had done NOTHING wrong), his answer was "Don't say anything! Just don't say anything!" We had 20 minutes of wondering what the hell was going on before they allowed us to continue. We had planned to go out to eat, but went home instead.

My social interation with LEOs has always been pleasant. My official interactions and those of my family have never positive, including when we were victims of crime. (I wouldn't press charges for theft on these guys, advised the LEO. They'll burn your house down.)

I waited with the driver of the other car for two plus hours on the side of the road after I was rear-ended as the Sheriff's office and the FHP passed the call back and forth even though there was a Sheriff's deputy one half of a block away directing after school traffic.

[Fumesucker]

25. Would what happened to my daughter count as a "personal experience"?

On her 17th birthday she was first forced to carry a bunch of drunk kids to the police station in her car and then was then arrested at the station on a bogus charge that was eventually thrown out.

Oh, and the cops involved also put some kind of strange and also completely bogus drug charge on her that didn't show up for years until she applied for a firearms license which was denied thanks to the charge coming up on her record, note that she never ever went to court on this charge.

She still would have the drug charge on her record if she hadn't happened to marry the son of the sheriff in our county, it took a great deal of string pulling on his part to get the charge expunged from her record. He was thoroughly embarrassed by this because it was some of his officers who originally screwed over my daughter in the first place.

[MineralMan]

28. Sure, but you're not the person I asked.

Was she with those drunk kids when the cop stopped them? Why? Apparently she was the sober one?

Sorry, but there's not really enough information in that story to draw a conclusion.

[Fumesucker]

31. In your world cops always get the benefit of the doubt.

I feel that those who are given special powers should be held to an even higher standard than a normal citizen, the exact opposite is true of cops, in a great many cases they are held to no standard at all.

You asked for an example of cops being assholes, I provided an experience that I was personally involved with.

[1monster]

32. No she wasn't. I was. And I answered more than an hour before you answered

her post.

You never even acknowledged my post. I guess actual testimony of LEO wrong doing is ignored?

Don't bother answering now since you couldn't be bothered earlier.

[WingDinger]

20. You are confirming WHY old people like police. When you are old or disabled, they do not intimidate,

or entrap. I have stories about police corruption that would curl your toes. Annd yes, they did retaliate when i shut them down.

[brewens]

8. I've lived in an area of 50,000 most of my life. Only the cops I

went to school with ever act even the least bit friendly. They have their own separate society and culture.
A cops wife cut my hair for years and a lot of the other cops and there wives went to her. I was able to listen to their conversations a lot. It's like they live in their own little cop town. It's the all cop all the time channel.

Her and her husband used the same gym in the morning as I did and several other cops too. Even working out around those guys I never got to know any of them. It was funny though because through part of those years her husband was on the area drug task force and was undercover. Grew his hair long and dressed like a biker. I was a stoner and used to go to the gym baked! It was nice to know I could recognize a couple of the undercover guys and knew their secret van on sight though.

[Coyote_Bandit]

2. All you have to do to taunt most dogs

is make eye contact.

Is that illegal too?

[bluerum]

5. Not illegal. But dogs consider direct eye contact somwhat aggressive behavior

and they have their own ways of dealing with it. A dominant dog may just consider it too much to bear and eliminate the threat. A submissive dog may tuck its tail and move along side for some interaction.

[TorchTheWitch]

14. depends what the rest of the body is doing, not just the eyes

Dogs (and all animals really) communicate with their entire bodies. Direct eye contact by itself doesn't mean much of anything.

Us humans have very long ago forgotten how to communicate with body language which is what enables us to lie to each other successfully... as animals rely mostly on body language to communicate they aren't capable of telling each other falsehoods nor would they try since it would be easily and obviously known.

Animals must think us humans are stupid as hell that we have no idea what our own bodies are telling them... "well, DUH!, I know you're scared and trying to hide it, I can SEE it, you nitwit!".

[Coyote_Bandit]

26. Ummmm......

"Animals of many species, including dogs, often perceive eye contact as a threat. Many programs to prevent dog bites recommend avoiding direct eye contact with an unknown dog.<22> According to a report in The New Zealand Medical Journal,<23> young children may be more likely to fall victim to dog attacks because they maintain eye contact out of curiosity or a belief, perhaps learned from the children's picture book Where the Wild Things Are, that eye contact will subdue the animal."

From:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eye_contact



"Prolonged eye contact may be considered a threat by both dominant and subordinate dogs. Dogs that are acting subordinate by looking away may feel threatened by continued eye contact and bite out of fear. A dominant and/or assertive dog can react to continued eye contact by holding the stare and escalating its aggressive threat. In some dogs a dark iris or hair occluding the eyes may make eye contact difficult to ascertain."

From:
http://www.mypetspages.com/petinfo/behavior/agressionindogsandcats.php



Eye contact is one of the ways order is kept in a pack. If you have not already established yourself as the alpha dog in the pack then making eye contact with a dog is interpretted by the dog as a challenge.

[asjr]

4. "The dog started it". now that is funny!

[Keith Bee]

16. I wonder if it was the same dog that used to eat his homework

[icnorth]

33. The dog just wanted a casual conversation but

it didn't get out of control until this jerk started hissing like a cat...

[WatsonT]

9. Why would you want to taunt a dog?

[DBoon]

10. I think the person was drunk

enough alcohol and your IQ falls to a dog's level

[WatsonT]

12. Yeah which seems to me like they could have got him for PI

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

17. Drunks are generally much dumber than dogs.

[hfojvt]

11. when they bark at me, I often bark back

you can't let them have the last bark.

[jwirr]

13. That man needs something constructive to do.

[MineralMan]

19. I guess my question would be: Why on Earth would anyone

want to taunt a police dog? That seems a very, very foolish thing to do. In fact, why would anyone want to taunt any dog he or she did not know personally?

I suppose the guy has the right to do that, but it's damn stupid. Dogs can hurt you if you annoy them.

[JohnnyRingo]

23. Works with farts.

The dog always cuts the first one. I just shrug my shoulders and say "what are ya gonna do?".

I think the guy has something here. In order for the court to find him guilty of maliciously inciting the dog, they'll have to prove he's the more mature party in the incident. Then they can fall back on drunk & disorderly as the over zealous cop should have done to begin with.

I've always worried that one of those K-9 units with a drug sniffing dog will pull up next to me at a traffic light, and the dog will go nuts trying to get through the window at me. I've been practicing my best innocent look while I circle my ear with my right index finger.

[Yo_Mama]

29. I have rarely laughed so hard

Thank you for posting this.

[Ohio Joe]

34. What a douchebag

Sorry but IMO anyone that taunts a dog like that is a douchebag.