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Police Cooksville TN made big mistake
Nighthawk
Member Posts: 12,022 ✭✭✭
Is anyone here familiar with the Two Officers who stopped the nice family traveling through on vacation,when their car fit the discription of a stolen car that had just robbed a store there.The Officers pulled the car over and ordored the occupants out of the car.The family had two Boxers with them,and the adult female tried to explain to the Officers who had guns drawn and were useing their cruisers as cover and did not listen to the women who wanted to shut her car door.And the dogs got out on a major highway as the Officers approached the family which the children I think were 12yrs and 7 yrs old and the dogs naturally trying to protect their owners came toward the Officers(some witness said the dogs were not acting aggresive?)but the Officers Dispatched both dogs in front of the whole family.It was shortly afterwords that the Officers were notified they had the wrong car.So here was this grieving family who's only crime was driveing the wrong color car loaded the body's of their long time pets and went to the Police station and filed grievance with the Police Chief of that town.Im sure they filed suit I was wondering what the out come of the trial was.This happened a little over a yr ago,is anyone here aware of the case?
Rugster
"Toujours Pret"
Rugster
"Toujours Pret"
Comments
Rugster you pretty much got it right.
What happened was, the family pulled in for gas. Before they left the station, the father left his wallet on top of the car. As they drove off, the wallet fell off. A bystander saw money flying off the top of the car. This led her to believe that the car had been carjacked so she called 911.
The connection between money flying off a car and carjacking is not clear to me.
Anyway, on the basis of this call the cops pulled out all the stops, and made a "felony stop" with lots of cops, shotguns drawn etc. Here again, when you see a mommy and two kids, it might make you think that even if there was a crime, the kids were not involved. But, they made them get out one by one, hands on head, back up to the cops, lay on face, get cuffed, even the kids had to do this. Like Rugster said they were not allowed to shut the door and they warned the cops several times they didn't want their dog to get out and get run over. The cops ignored them.
I saw the video of the dumb * cop blowing the dog's head off.
Never heard of the outcome of this case.
Rugster
"Toujours Pret"
Rugster
"Toujours Pret"
Like so many things (remember the SWAT raid on the school, guns drawn, hut, hut, types shoving kids around, handcuffing them, etc. and there were no drugs or guns found anywhere in that school) an incident drops off of the "nightly news" and you never hear the end result.
If you only have time to do two things so-so, or one thing well ... do the one thing!
Pack slow, fall stable, pull high, hit dead center.
Don't fly the river!
Frog
GO NAVY, BEAT ARMY
As family shrieks, police kill dog Wednesday, January 8, 2003 Posted: 10:26 PM EST (0326 GMT)
COOKEVILLE, Tennessee (CNN) -- Police video released Wednesday showed a North Carolina family kneeling and handcuffed, who shrieked as officers killed their dog -- which appeared to be playfully wagging its tail -- with a shotgun during a traffic stop.
The Smoak family was pulled over the evening of January 1 on Interstate 40 in eastern Tennessee by officers who mistakenly suspected them of a carjacking. An investigation showed James Smoak had simply left his wallet on the roof of his car at a gas station, and motorists who saw his money fly off the car as he drove away called police.
The family was driving through eastern Tennessee on their way home from a New Year's trip to Nashville. They told CNN they are in the process of retaining a lawyer and considering legal action against the Cookeville, Tennessee, Police Department and the Tennessee Highway Patrol for what happened to them and their dog.
In the video, released by the THP, officers are heard ordering the family, one by one, to get out of their car with their hands up. James Smoak and his wife, Pamela, and 17-year-old son Brandon are ordered onto their knees and handcuffed.
"What did I do?" James Smoak asks the officers.
"Sir, inside information is that you was involved in some type of robbery in Davidson County," the unidentified officer says.
Smoak and his wife protest incredulously, telling the officers that they are from South Carolina and that their mother and father-in-law are traveling in another car alongside them.
The Smoaks told CNN that as they knelt, handcuffed, they pleaded with officers to close the doors of their car so their two dogs would not escape, but the officers did not heed them.
Pamela Smoak is seen on the tape looking up at an officer, telling him slowly, "That dog is not mean. He won't hurt you."
Her husband says, "I got a dog in the car. I don't want him to jump out."
The tape then shows the Smoak's medium-size brown dog romping on the shoulder of the Interstate, its tail wagging. As the family yells, the dog, named Patton, first heads away from the road, then quickly circles back toward the family.
An officer in a blue uniform aims his shotgun at the dog and fires at its head, killing it immediately. For several moments, all that is audible are shrieks as the family reacts to the shooting. James Smoak even stands up, but officers pull him back down.
"Y'all shot my dog! Y'all shot my dog!" James Smoak cries. "Oh my God! God Almighty!" "You shot my dog!" screams his wife, distraught and still handcuffed. "Why'd you kill our dog?" "Jesus, tell me, why did y'all shoot my dog?" James Smoak says.
The officers bring him to the patrol car, and the family calms down, but still they ask the officers for an explanation. One of them says Patton was "going after" the officer.
"No he wasn't, man," James Smoak says. "Y'all didn't have to kill the dog like that."
Brandon told CNN Patton, was playful and gentle -- "like Scooby-Doo" -- and may have simply gone after the beam of the flashlight as he often did at home, when Brandon and the dog would play. The Tennessee Department of Safety, which oversees the Highway Patrol, has said an investigation is under way.
Cookeville Police Chief Robert Terry released a statement on the department's Web site Wednesday night describing the department's regret over the incident.
"I know the officer wishes that circumstances could have been different so he could have prevented shooting the dog," Terry wrote. "It is never gratifying to have to put an animal down, especially a family pet, and the officer assures me that he never displayed any satisfaction in doing so." Terry said he and the vice-mayor of Cookeville met with the family before they left "to convey our deepest sympathies" for the loss of their dog.
"No one wants to experience this kind of thing, and it's very unfortunate that it occurred," he wrote. "If we had the benefit of hindsight, I'm sure some -- if not all of this -- could have been avoided. I believe the Tennessee Highway Patrol feels the same way."
The department is conducting an investigation to determine what, if anything, could have been done differently, he said. Police also plan to be in contact with the Smoak family, Terry said. The Smoaks buried their pet at home. A white cross marks the grave.
It's All Crapola!!!
As I stated above, a few days after the incident, the last that I recall hearing, is that the idea of suing the departments was cooling off, but the idea of suing the person that made the 911 call was warming up. And that the principal officers involved were on leave with at least one termination pending.
Now what was the end result, if there has been one, probalby only the people in and around Cooksville know.
If you only have time to do two things so-so, or one thing well ... do the one thing!
Imbecile.
I'd go after the idiot cop with a civil suit if it were feasible, myself. Hope it is, and I hope they do.
They say they wished it could have been done differently? It "could have been done differently!
They get a phone call on a suspect, stop the car, treat kids as a possible threat to life? With so many officers, did the officers feel their lifes in danger? They have some real paranoid officers that need a bit more training or find another proffession!! Common sense would be a good start. I'm sure the officer doesn't want to get killed, but nor do the suspects and members of the family.
Is this signs of a "police state" senerio? Who the he$$ is hiring and training these guys!
Boomer
"Success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as it is by the obstacles which one has overcome while trying to succeed"
NRA Life Member