Let me guess...it was a woman officer who responded and shot the dog. I think I remember another local story a while back where a female officer shot a families watch dog that got out. Surely if the bitten person and his helper could escape from the dog...or animal control officers can capture any dog they want without shooting it.
This officer could have done something besides shoot it?
Mace? Tranquilizer gun? Tasers? Dummy bullets? Bright spotlights in it's eyes? Call Animal Control? Use a water hose? These cops are armed like Batman and his Utility Belt.
It's not like this dog was some stray they had no idea where it came from. They already knew it had simply escaped from it's yard, and was probably just protecting his area. The officers should have been more patient, until the proper help arrived. It sounds like shooting it was an extreme way to deal with this issue. I wish the police would be this aggressive with more of the criminals. I do think the local officers are doing a better job stepping up crime control, but let's not slow down on that....keep it up. And quit sending lady cops or people scared of dogs to handle dog problems. Just shooting off the gun into the ground (dance, you dog...lol!) instead of actually shooting the gun should have been plenty good enough to get the dog to back off until somebody more appropriate to handle dog problems joined the call. I am a strong police supporter, but cops shooting people's watch dogs needs to happen less here.

That's ignorant to assume it was a female cop. All across America family dogs are getting shot by police without just cause. In all the recent cases I've seen all the armed officers that shot and in most cases killed the dogs were male. Other than that I agree with most of what you said.

Oh...for sure...I admit fully it is making an assumption. It is not ''ignorant'', though. In fact it has near a 50% chance of being a correct guess, depending on how many female cops are on duty at that time. There are a lot of female cops in this area. I wish I could go into a casino with odds like that. Just curious, though...do you know something you are not sharing? Did you find out any more details about whether it was a male or a female cop? I didn't think so. I am a betting man, and I feel good about standing by my guess. It was not meant to ''diss'' a female cop. Not at all. It was just a statement I decided to make. I don't see any other comments besides yours here. I based my comment on a recent similar story here locally that ''did'' involve a female cop. It's an open blog...anyone who wants to jump in ...go ahead. I simply feel like I made a reasonable assumption. I don't expect females to be able to be less afraid of a vicious dog..not even a female cop. This is just plain sense. Just because a female decides to become a cop does not mean she has to shed her femininity 100%. . I doubt seriously that fellow male cops expect their female counterparts to do that, either. My point was that it doesn't make a lot of sense to dispatch a female officer to a call like that and be the first one that will arrive. It always seem strange how a wild animal will get tranquilized, but they shoot family pets dead. In this city, a good watch dog is worth a million dollars.