Puppycide ruling explainer

For the last few puppycide roundup posts, I’ve begun adding labels to each report to indicate at a glance whether the shooting was justified, unjustified, merely attempted or averted altogether. This post explains how I make these determinations.

It should be evident that these rulings represent my personal judgements based on the information available to me from the linked reports, and may well (and often do) contradict the rulings issued by police departments, which typically prefer to protect their own rather than admit an officer may have acted inappropriately.

• Unclear | Indicates the report lacks crucial information, making it difficult to discern the circumstances of the shooting, whether or not it could have been avoided, or even whether the victim(s) is/are alive or deceased.

• Averted | Indicates the best-case scenario wherein a shooting doesn’t occur, even in a situation where it otherwise might have, thanks to officers exhibiting proper restraint and/or deploying non-lethal tactics (such as having the owner restrain the animal) or equipment (such as stun guns, OC spray, dog-catcher poles, etc.). Killing a pet is rarely necessary; given how many officers jump straight to lethal force, those who strive to keep the animal alive deserve recognition.

• Attempted | Indicates a shooting took place but no animal was killed, though it/they may have been injured. Unless paired with Justified or Possibly Justified, the assumption is that the shooting of a household pet was avoidable, either because the animal posed no clear threat (such as if it was already restrained or confined to its own yard) or because the officers failed to take reasonable measures to neutralize the animal using non-lethal tactics or equipment.

• Unjustified | Indicates a shooting, lethal or otherwise, which circumstances clearly indicate could have been avoided, either by the shooter(s) showing restraint or following proper escalation of force, or by attempting to use non-lethal tactics or equipment to subdue the animal without killing it.

• Possibly Justified | Indicates a shooting, lethal or otherwise, where circumstances appear to indicate that use of lethal force against an animal was necessary, but some ambiguity remains that prevents the reader from seeing whether the events could have unfolded differently.

• Justified | Indicates a shooting, lethal or otherwise, where the described circumstances make it clear that lethal force against the animal(s) was the only recourse, such as when a person’s life is in imminent danger and/or non-lethal tactics and equipment either were attempted but failed to subdue the threat or couldn’t feasibly be deployed.

01/28/18 @ 7:40 PM ET