LEO frequency of discharge

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michaelb

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Forum threads on this site have generally stated that it is very rare that an LEO will fire their weapon in their career. Who is killing 25-30 dogs per day? ( DOJ statistics) Up to 500 per day extrapolating hard data from reporting Departments.
 
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Forum threads on this site have generally stated that it is very rare that an LEO will fire their weapon in their career. Who is killing 25-500 dogs per day? ( DOJ statistics)
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If you consider how many LEOs are in the entire country divided by the number of killed dogs, it would be rare for most to fire their weapon. I also suspect that some LEOs will have killed several dogs each.
 
osbornk is correct. It's usually one cop doing most of the canine shooting when a house is entered. Most of them don't want to do it and that's probably OK. A few don't mind shooting the dog. Most police officers shoot their guns twice a year to quality and that's about the extent of their shooting unless they have an interest outside of work.
 
Okay, who is killing 25-500 dogs a day? Where did you get that statistic? You say it is from the DOJ, but they don't produce numbers like that. They have a grand total and extrapolate an average. Got a link?
 
Using the lowest number of 25 dogs = ~10,000 per year. There are ~900,000 sworn officers so that accounts for 1 dog per 90 officers per year not including the ones that survive. National average of LEO career is 5 years ( really skewed ) So at a minimum 20% will shoot a dog in their career. All numbers have been heavily skewed to the LEO. So if the majority say they never or rarely discharge their weapon, then there are a few that are really going at it. Keep in mind, this is just dogs. Departments work with statical averages. Why would they tolerant such an abnormal variant?
 
Laurel Matthews, a supervisory program specialist with the Department of Justice's Community Oriented Policing Services (DOJ COPS) office, says it's an awful lot. She calls fatal police vs. dogs encounters an "epidemic" and estimates that 25 to 30 pet dogs are killed each day by law enforcement officers.

http://www.policemag.com/channel/patrol/articles/2014/10/can-police-stop-killing-dogs.aspx


Half of intentional shootings by police involve dogs, study says

http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle...-shootings-by-police-involve-dogs-study-says/
 
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Michael, welcome to TFL.

I'm not sure what we at TFL can learn from this topic, especially given that the reports you've linked are basically anecdotal and/or pretty much "wild-assed guesses" about the frequency of these events. Is there a gun-related takeaway from this, given that TFL is neither an LEO forum nor a dog forum?
 
Understood. I was brought to this site due to multiple threads here mentioning the low use of firearms by LEO. I was trying get some reference to back that up. I would think DOJ and policemag would be respected sources documenting the number of shootings.
If this is too far off purpose of TFL, I will let it go.
 
Using the lowest number of 25 dogs = ~10,000 per year.
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25 per day average is the DOJ number, true enough, but NOT 500 a day. That is not a DOJ number and isn't backed up by your sources.

Spend time with Google and you will find where many of these shootings occur. There are a bunch in big cities such as LA. A lot of the dogs killed are associated with drug raids.

So is your point to try to figure out how many cops actually discharge their guns in the line of duty and you are using the dog example to show there are more shootings than just with people? If so, I think you have derailed your own search by fixating on the wrong data.
 
I am trying to compare what is commonly accepted (most cops never fire their gun) to available numbers. The dog shootings are more common which would make for easier comparison.

I am not discussing if the shootings are good or bad.

The 500 came from here:
“We are nowhere close to having complete dog killing records for all 18,000 police departments,” Wieder told the Daily Dot. Puppycide DB looked at the dog-killing records of just 40 police departments. The data showed a mean killing rate of 10 dogs per department. Based on just that tiny sample, Wieder said, that rate would add up to 500 dogs a day nationwide.

As you noted I used the smaller number.
 
Without a link to an actual study or statistical breakdown, it's impossible to verify those numbers or put them into context.

It occurs to me that animal control officers are law enforcement. Are those part of the figure?
 
I don't know how typical he was, but one of my sons was a street cop in a big Midwest city, working a high crime area, for about 5 years before he moved to a computer forensics job with the State government. Although he drew his gun on occasion, he said he never fired a round in the conduct of his duties. His only shooting was at the range to practice and qualify twice a year.
 
I would say in PA 40 years ago that Game Wardens shot the most dogs. You do not hear much about wild dog packs chasing deer anymore, but at one time it was a real problem. I believe it is still legal to shoot dogs running down deer here. As for the police shooting dogs, meth labs and pitbulls seem to go together around here.
 
The 500 came from here:
“We are nowhere close to having complete dog killing records for all 18,000 police departments,” Wieder told the Daily Dot. Puppycide DB looked at the dog-killing records of just 40 police departments. The data showed a mean killing rate of 10 dogs per department. Based on just that tiny sample, Wieder said, that rate would add up to 500 dogs a day nationwide
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Again, this is not a DOJ statistic you claimed it was. Your original premise was not based on fact and you misrepresented it.
 
I started to track down the stats on this. I got sidetracked when I read that there are about 4.5 million people in the USA bitten by dogs in a year. CDC stats.
 
Yes, with about 333,700 visiting the ER and usually the dog is either known or part of the family. Most bites are by smaller breeds with Cocker Spaniels leading the list.
 
Cops n Dogs

I worked as a policeman for 25 years, over that span of time I shot two dogs. One had been hit by a car and was suffering, so I put it out of it's misery. The second attacked me when I chased a robbery subject through an outdoor drug market.

As someone mentioned and IME the great number of dogs shot by police involve the service of warrants, mostly for narcotics.
 
The calculation used the lower end of the DOJ estimate. I will make a correction to fully reflect the facts.
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Please be incredibly careful using some of these statistics.

Misusing statistics either by mistake or intentionally has almost become a cliché. A guy looked at peoples wills in the 1800's, they were public record, and concluded that folks in the 1800's didn't have near as many firearms as we thought because they weren't listed in the wills he checked.

If I knew just one cop and he had shot one dog during the past year could I extrapolate that with 900,000 cops in the country there would have been 900,000 dogs shot last year? Well I COULD do that but that would be just obviously wrong.

Please don't assume your stats are telling you stuff you want to hear if they are not.

Good luck in your endeavor.
 
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