During a high-speed car chase late last night, a suspected drunk driver lost control of his vehicle, crashing through a railroad crossing gate and into a barber shop in Pacoima, Calif.
The car burst into flames.
“The male attempted to climb over the female passenger to escape but wasn’t able to,” an officer with the Los Angeles Police Department, who’d been pursuing the suspect, told CBS Los Angeles. The man was taken into custody.
The man and woman weren’t the only passengers. The woman told the police there were two puppies in the car.
One of the puppies was found, but the other wasn’t discovered until several hours later, covered in the foamy water used by the fire department to put out the blaze. Amazingly, neither of the puppies was injured.
“Fortunately the puppies are pretty resilient,” a police officer said at the scene as he held one of them, KABC reports.
The puppies were taken to the East Valley animal shelter in Van Nuys. Hopefully they’ll be rehomed with more responsible pet parents.
When Officers Mercado and Tavera with the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) found an abandoned puppy wandering on a busy Hollywood street, they didn’t turn him over to L.A. Animal Services, where the little guy may — or more likely, may not — have eventually found a forever home.
Instead, the LAPD Hollywood division has adopted the puppy, naming him Hobart after the street he was discovered on. As you can see from the video, “#HollywoodHobart” has become very attached to one of his rescuers!
Although the LAPD joked about Hobert joining its K-9 unit, the little pup could become a comfort dog, working his charm not only on crime victims but on stressed-out officers. As I wrote for Care2.com in September 2018, comfort dogs are becoming more and more common in police stations.
Many thanks to Officers Mercado and Tavera for likely saving Hobart’s life, and here’s hoping this lucky dog brings lots of joy to the LAPD Hollywood division.
As an episode of the Hulu series “Chance” was being filmed on a downtown Los Angeles street the morning of May 26, something horribly dramatic happened off camera. An off-duty LAPD motorcycle officer, who was working as a security guard on the film set, shot and killed a pet dog.
The unidentified cop was working on South Main Street when he got into an argument with Emry Zumreet and was attacked by his “aggressive” Pit Bull — or at least that’s the story from LAPD spokeswoman Jenny Hauser, according to the Los Angeles Times.
LAPD Sgt. Barry Montgomery concurs with Hauser. “A dog belonging to that suspect became aggressive and attacked our officer, and it was at that time that an officer-involved shooting occurred,” he told CBS Los Angeles. The officer was taken to a hospital for minor injuries.
But Zumreet’s attorney and an apparent eyewitness to the shooting tell quite a different story.
“I live in the building above where this happened, the officer was completely fine,” wrote camjameson in a comment on the L.A. Times story.
“At least 100 people from the surrounding buildings were yelling about the incident, having seen it themselves, and everyone claims the officer was not attacked, but that the dog was just growling,” according to camjameson. “This is some cover up if I’ve ever seen it. Your gun should never be your first option in a threatening situation, there are so many other options, especially against a mid-sized dog and a super scrawny dude in a wife-beater with no visible weapons. Shameful.”
According to Ben Meiselas, Zumreet’s attorney, this is what happened:
As Zumreet drove down South Main Street, the LAPD officer stopped traffic due to the TV shoot. Zumreet got into some kind of argument with the officer, and the officer opened the car door. When Zumreet stepped out of his car, the officer pulled out a handgun. Zumreet’s dog jumped out of the car through the open door, and the officer shot him.
“He executed the dog because it was a Pit Bull,” Meiselas told the Los Angeles Times. He said witnesses have come forward to say the shooting was unnecessary.
Another witness, Nelson Aguilar, told KCAL9 he heard two men yelling and then two gunshots. He recorded the rest of what he saw on his cell phone.
“And I saw the dog, and the dog had been shot, and it was squirming on the floor,” he said. “And I saw the owner, and the owner was yelling, talking about, ‘You killed my dog.'”
Aguilar said the Zumreet was arrested after he kept going into the roped-off area, “hugging his dog.” Meiselas told the Times Zumreet called the LAPD for help before he was arrested. According to KCAL9, police haven’t decided whether any charges will be pressed against him.
Hopefully security cameras in the area recorded what really happened. Stay tuned for more details as they become available.
Coincidentally, the series “Chance” that was filming near the shooting is about a forensic neuropsychiatrist (Hugh Laurie) who’s pulled into “a violent and dangerous world of mistaken identity, police corruption and mental illness,” according to Hulu.
Preventing ‘Puppycide’
It’s a horrible statistic, but more than 10,000 pet dogs are shot by police officers in this country every year, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. There’s even a term for it: “puppycide.”
To prevent this, some police departments are training their officers how to deal with scared or agitated pets in non-lethal ways.
In response to the shocking, viral 2013 video of a Hawthorne, Calif., police officer shooting a Rottweiler named Max as his owner begged him not to, spcaLA began offering the class, “Dog Behavior for Law Enforcement” to all police departments in California.
In 2013, Colorado became the first state to pass a “Dog Protection Act,” which requires similar training for law enforcement officers. Two years later, Texas enacted a law that required the Texas Commission on Law Enforcement to establish a statewide comprehensive training program in dog encounters.
These programs are a good start, but as those sad statistics make clear, teaching law enforcement officers how to humanely deal with dogs should be required in every state.
On a summery day like yesterday in Los Angeles, crowds of tourists flock to popular Venice Beach. Despite putting these visitors at risk, an LAPD officer opened fire in the middle of the afternoon on a Pit Bull who he said bit his hand. The bullet passed through the dog and hit the leg of a woman who was riding by on a bicycle.
The woman was taken to UCLA Medical Center, where she was in stable condition yesterday. The dog did not survive.
The unidentified officer who somehow thought it was a good idea to use his gun on a crowded boardwalk has been assigned to non-field duties as this case is being investigated. He will “have to be able to articulate why they used the force they did, and why they did not use other options if they were applicable at the time,” Detective Meghan Aguilar told KTLA.
There’s currently no video available of the shooting incident. It happened after two mounted LAPD officers told a group of people who were blocking part of the bike path to move their belongings. A couple of people in the group became belligerent, and the dog became agitated. When the officers got off their horses, the dog allegedly bit an officer’s hand.
“I heard a struggle, and the next thing I knew, I heard a shot. And I saw the dog laying there,” Tara Borris, a witness, told KCBS. “I think the dog was just protecting his owner. I didn’t hear any growling.”
Terah Clark, a woman in the group, told KCBS the dog’s owner was holding the dog back by his collar when the officer fired.
This case was described by KCBS as “very unusual” because an innocent bystander was also shot — but these cases are not unusual at all. In June 2015 a 4-year-old girl was shot by a cop who was aiming for her family’s dog. Three months before that, a woman in Iowa was killed by an officer’s bullet intended for her dog.
The KCBS report shows the owner sobbing as he holds his dead dog, who Clark said he’d had for 10 years. One person in the group was arrested for an outstanding warrant and another for resisting arrest, but the dog’s owner wasn’t one of them.
Preventing ‘Puppycide’
It’s a horrible statistic, but more than 10,000 pet dogs are shot by police officers in this country every year, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. There’s even a term for it: “puppycide.” To prevent this, some police departments are training their officers in non-lethal ways to deal with scared pets.
In response to the shocking, viral 2013 video of a Hawthorne, Calif., police officer shooting a Rottweiler named Max as his owner begged him not to, spcaLA began offering the class, “Dog Behavior for Law Enforcement” to all police departments in California. (The mounted LAPD officer patrolling Venice Beach yesterday may have skipped this class.)
In 2013, Colorado became the first state to pass a “Dog Protection Act,” which requires similar training for law enforcement officers. Two years later, Texas enacted a law that required the Texas Commission on Law Enforcement to establish a statewide comprehensive training program in dog encounters.
These programs are a good start, but as those sad statistics make clear, teaching law enforcement officers how to humanely deal with dogs should be required in every state.
Fortunately, many police officers inherently know the right way to handle frightened animals. Just last week, two deputies in Florida saw two scared, stray Pit Bulls in the middle of a street. While that LAPD officer would likely have shot both of them, Deputy Boggs and Deputy Reed with the Orange County Sheriff’s Office stayed with the dogs, comforting them until animal services arrived. Good cops, indeed.
More than 75 potential adopters wrote essays describing why they would be the perfect parents for Chip, a Husky puppy found in an SUV after a high-speed police pursuit last month.
When the pursuit ended, the puppy’s former owner, John Garcia, shot California Highway Patrol (CHP) Officer Felix Serpas, who survived and is recovering. The puppy was named Chip in honor of Serpas, according to a news release.
Garcia was taken into custody and charged with attempted murder. Chip was taken to the Riverside County Animal Services shelter in Jurupa Valley, Calif., where there was an outpouring of adoption offers. The shelter asked all potential adopters to write a short essay explaining why they wanted the energetic Husky.
The winner: Mike Ventura of Covina, Calif., who’s a detective with the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD).
“His heartfelt words resonated with a team of employees here at the main shelter who helped select the adopter,” said Animal Services spokesman John Welsh in a written statement, the Press Enterprise reports.
As for everyone else who wrote an essay, they will be receiving a special offer from the shelter, according to its Facebook page. I’m guessing/hoping it’s an adoption fee discount, to encourage every one of those dozens of potential pet parents to adopt another lovable homeless dog.
This website uses cookies to improve your experience. You can opt-out if you wish.Got it!RejectPrivacy Policy
Privacy & Cookies Policy
Privacy Overview
This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience.
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.
