Danville police officer that shot a miniature dachshund<\/a> and the public outrage.<\/p>\nSouthsideCentral attended Chief Broadfoot’s first press conference on the matter and thought he handled it well. He had no choice but to support his officer’s actions because the shooting was in line with the department’s policy. After reviewing the facts that were presented at the conference, I was switching between two points of view.<\/p>\n
A) It’s a damned shame, but I have to side with the police officer’s actions because he was in fear of his safety.
\nB) No, it was excessive force and the officer’s fears were irrational based on the circumstances.<\/p>\n
Position A finally won out in the end, but I also thought that “just because it’s legal doesn’t make it right”.<\/p>\n
Until last night, that is. I was covering the City Council meeting and saw Paulette Dean and associates sitting back in the gallery. There was nothing job-related for her on the agenda and she didn’t speak during the public comment section. She’d never been to any of the other council meetings that I had covered, but I didn’t think too much of it.<\/p>\n
That was until they went to the around-the-horn session for council members to make comments. Adam Tomer’s turn came up and he let loose with a speech that changed my mind completely. When he talked about meter readers and postal workers not using guns to kill small dogs that growl and bark at them, my mind instantly changed and I realized that he was right. Tomer went further by criticizing the reaction by the leadership of the DPD, but I can’t agree with him there. Broadfoot has done everything that he can to try and defuse the volatile situation.<\/p>\n
To me, the police officer’s fear at that moment was irrational and the threat could have been neutralized by using non-lethal force. I understand that the police chief has no choice but to stand behind his officer’s actions because his officer’s actions were within the department’s policy. I support the Danville police department and their leadership 100%, and that makes this even a tougher opinion to form.<\/p>\n
Finally, there’s a personal reason that makes it even harder to criticize the officer. I know him. We went to school together and Murrill’s a good guy. I haven’t seen him in over 20 years, but Murrill was\/is the type of guy not to do something like this just because he could.<\/p>\n
Yep. Murrill’s actions were wrong. A family pet was killed because of his actions and no one can unring the bell. It’s a damned shame.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Adam Tomer changed my opinion on it last night.<\/p>\n
[…]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[58,22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4266","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-danville","category-opinioncentral","odd"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pwqFk-16O","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":4198,"url":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/2009\/06\/11\/danville-police-department-press-conference-live-recap\/","url_meta":{"origin":4266,"position":0},"title":"Danville Police Department press conference – LIVE! recap","author":"SouthsideCentral","date":"June 11, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"The Danville Police Department held a press conference today to discuss Monday's officer-involved shooting of a dog while serving warrants. Chief of Police Philip Broadfoot read a prepared statement then took questions from reporters from WSET, WDBJ, WSLS, WGSR, the Register & Bee, the Star-Tribune and SouthsideCentral.com. Broadfoot was clear\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "LIVE!Central"","block_context":{"text":"LIVE!Central","link":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/category\/livecentral\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4697,"url":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/2009\/07\/18\/danville-police-arrest-another-19-year-old-in-shooting-case\/","url_meta":{"origin":4266,"position":1},"title":"Danville Police arrest another 19 year old in shooting case.","author":"SouthsideCentral","date":"July 18, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"At 4:00 PM, Danville Police caught the second guy involved in last Saturday's shooting. Danville Police made a traffic stop at 4PM today and arrested DeAnthony McMoore (19) of Danville and charged him with shooting the 19-year-old male in the case. McMoore was charged with malicious wounding, use of a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Breaking News"","block_context":{"text":"Breaking News","link":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/category\/newscentral\/breaking-news\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7054,"url":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/2010\/06\/25\/breaking-news-danville-police-report-one-dead-one-wounded-in-shooting\/","url_meta":{"origin":4266,"position":2},"title":"BREAKING NEWS: Danville Police report one dead, one wounded in shooting.","author":"SouthsideCentral","date":"June 25, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"We just got this from the Danville Police department... Danville Police responded to a call of a shooting in the 100 block of Camp St on June 25, 2010. At approximately 4:54 PM Danville Police responded to the 100 block of Camp St in regards to a shots fired call.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Breaking News"","block_context":{"text":"Breaking News","link":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/category\/newscentral\/breaking-news\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7397,"url":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/2011\/11\/16\/one-injured-in-danville-shooting\/","url_meta":{"origin":4266,"position":3},"title":"One injured in Danville shooting","author":"SouthsideCentral","date":"November 16, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"I may not be on Star News anymore, but I'll still try to bring you the best news coverage in Danville. The news doesn't happen just between the hours of 1 & 9 PM, folks. Here's the latest from the Danville Police Department... On 11-15-11 at approximately 7:15 PM, Danville\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Danville"","block_context":{"text":"Danville","link":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/category\/locations\/danville\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6128,"url":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/2010\/01\/06\/some-thoughts-about-the-danville-police-shooting\/","url_meta":{"origin":4266,"position":4},"title":"Some thoughts about the Danville police shooting.","author":"SouthsideCentral","date":"January 6, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"By now, you've heard that a Danville police officer shot & killed a suspect who pointed a gun at him. Let's talk about it. Man dies following officer-involved shooting in Danville Lesson that should be learned but probably won't be: Point a gun at a police officer and you will\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Danville"","block_context":{"text":"Danville","link":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/category\/locations\/danville\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5679,"url":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/2009\/10\/24\/14-year-old-shot-dead-in-danville-suspect-arrested\/","url_meta":{"origin":4266,"position":5},"title":"14-year-old shot dead in Danville, suspect arrested.","author":"SouthsideCentral","date":"October 24, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Wow. What can you really say about this? From our friends at the Danville Police Department... A subject has been arrested in the shooting incident related to the homicide that occurred last night. Quayshuan Malik Woods age 18 has been charged with Use of a Firearm in Commission of a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Danville"","block_context":{"text":"Danville","link":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/category\/locations\/danville\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4266","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4266"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4266\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10125,"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4266\/revisions\/10125"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4266"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4266"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4266"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}