Couple of things
- The Athens Banner-Herald editorial is a good one, as it encourages public participation in the redevelopment of the Naval School property. Having worked on some of the proposals for its resuse in the form of services for the poor, I'd recommend everyone go check it out.
- The Athens-Clarke County Police Department is reviewing its polices regarding weapon use on school campuses. They're going to get some new training guidelines in place after that whole shooting the dog thing.
- Yesterday, I received a information update kit from some folks from my senior class from Westside High School in Augusta (class of 1996 baby), and I was floored at how many names were misspelled. Can't you just grab the senior yearbook and kinda use that for a guideline? Lots of folks, by the way, still living in Augusta with only five that I saw actually living outside the state.
- There's a debate tonight folks, so go check it out. Over at The Melting Point at 7 p.m. for the two local runoff elections. The format for this one includes the chance for the candidates to question each other, which could be entertaining.
- The Athens-Clarke County Police Department is reviewing its polices regarding weapon use on school campuses. They're going to get some new training guidelines in place after that whole shooting the dog thing.
- Yesterday, I received a information update kit from some folks from my senior class from Westside High School in Augusta (class of 1996 baby), and I was floored at how many names were misspelled. Can't you just grab the senior yearbook and kinda use that for a guideline? Lots of folks, by the way, still living in Augusta with only five that I saw actually living outside the state.
- There's a debate tonight folks, so go check it out. Over at The Melting Point at 7 p.m. for the two local runoff elections. The format for this one includes the chance for the candidates to question each other, which could be entertaining.
posted by Jmac at 7:14 AM
3 Comments:
The only thing SRO Barnett did wrong was not shoot the dog a second time. Just kidding -- maybe.
A letter in the ABH today complains about "subjective" shooting criteria and says that shooting the dog was wrong. I must disagree. The police investigation report says that the dog had chased a student for several hundred feet and scared a security officer who called for help from the police officer. The police officer became concerned that the dog owners could not get their dog under control, knowing that it had chased a student, knowing that it had alarmed the security officers, and seeing that it was ignoring its owners. He shot it when it advanced toward him. He was concerned with the safety of the students that would be released soon and he feared for his own safety when the dog moved toward him.
Officer Barnett was fully justified in shooting the dog. At a moment when he was justified in believing his safety was in imminent danger he could not predict the ballistics of the bullet that he prudently aimed downward.
I don't know the sentiments of the dog owners, but it is no matter how friendly or precious someone thinks his pit bull is. It is a feature of dog behavior that it will be loyal to its master but behave differently toward strangers. Dangerous breeds also are known to target children and small adults. This is all common knowledge, so it is natural and justified to fear a roaming dog of such a breed. The dog owners are irresponsible to keep it in a densely populated area.
I think the problem for the letter-writer has more to do with 'subjective' being a bad term and 'objective' being a good term.
Most people associate subjective with "wishy washy feel good anything goes nonsense," without consideration that subjectivity is, in essence, how we form that opinion in the first place.
Post a Comment
<< Home