A SWAT team in Racine, Wis., reportedly shot and killed a dog following an hours-long standoff with the dogs owner last Saturday.
The bizarre chain of events began when neighbor Kim Polk told the unidentified dog owner to stop allowing their dog to crap in her yard.
According to Polk, the dog owner kicked the dog defecation into a pile of leaves and told her, “I’m going to shoot [your dog] with a bow and arrow.”
Polk’s husband went to talk to the dog owner at his house about the incident.
“[The dog owner] closed the door and came back to the door with a machete in his hand, a very long machete so at that time my husband backed up off the property and I had my daughter call the police,” stated Polk.
For the next several hours, the man remained in his house while a SWAT team outside negotiated with him.
“When he finally decided to come out of the house he was irate upset and was telling the cops to get off his property that he was going to harm them, he was going to shoot at the cops,” claimed Polk.
The dog owner released his dog, who barked at the police, and began to return to the house when the SWAT team killed the canine.
After viewing the video, Chief Howell said there would be an internal investigation. Racine Police Chief Art Howell spent the afternoon Sunday listening to the 911 tapes of a Saturday stand off and talking with officers and supervisors who were on scene. He also reviewed video by neighbors of the moment when his officers shot and killed the suspect’s dog.
He explained that the suspect issued threats to kill police with an armor-piercing crossbow and to release his dog against officers.
According to RancineCountyEye.com, Racine Police Chief Art Howell released a statement on Sunday that read in part:
During this standoff, the dog owner threatened to use a body armor piercing crossbow to kill officers, and this subject threatened to use his dog as a weapon against officers as well. After several hours of dialogue with crisis negotiators, the barricaded subject ultimately made good on his threat to introduce the dog into the active standoff.
After the dog was released, the dynamics of this encounter changed. Officers, who for over three hours were focused on peacefully resolving this crisis through dialogue, were now forced to deal with the distraction and unpredictability of having the subject’s dog moving through the scene of this active encounter at a critical time.
Sources: Opposing Views, Racine County Eye