The Danville police officer that shot and killed the dachshund a month ago has lost his job.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Here’s the official statement from Chief of Police Philip Broadfoot<\/p>\n
The shooting took place on June 8th at 100 Berman Drive when a dachshund attacked Officer Murrill McLean as he was attempting to serve a warrant. The supervisor who responded to the scene did an excellent job responding to the grief of the dog\u2019s owners, but did not properly investigate the shooting and document the evidence. The supervisor accepted McLean\u2019s account without a detailed demonstration or explanation of how the shooting took place. A proper investigation would have shown that where Officer McLean was standing during the attack would have provided him the time, distance and means necessary to consider other options before using his firearm.<\/p>\n
On June 10th, Deputy Chief Tom Brown raised questions about the quality of the investigation and ordered more information and pictures. The new information and pictures simply supported the original documentation. After I returned to work from my vacation on the morning of Thursday, June 11th, I used the investigation file and a personal telephone interview with Officer McLean to make my decision that the shooting was regrettable but justified under department policy.<\/p>\n
After hearing comments in the media about bloodstain evidence at the scene that was not documented in the investigation file, I went to Berman Drive and personally looked at the scene of the shooting. My observations immediately raised questions in my mind about how the shooting actually occurred. Officer McLean could not be questioned at that time because he was out of town. Once I was able to interview him in person on June 24th, I ordered a full-scale internal affairs investigation of the entire incident. <\/p>\n
The internal affairs investigation is now complete. The investigation determined that while Officer McLean\u2019s fear of rabies is well founded based on several personal life experiences, his reports of how the shooting occurred were misleading and factually inaccurate. Based on these reports and a thorough review of the physical evidence, I have determined that the shooting of the dachshund did not follow department policy and was not justified. The investigation also determined that several supervisors in his chain of command did not ensure the incident was properly investigated. <\/p>\n
As a result of the investigation, Officer McLean has been terminated from employment and disciplinary proceedings have been initiated with the supervisors for violating department policy. Because this is now a personnel matter involving discipline, I cannot give more complete details. This entire matter has been an embarrassment to the Danville Police Department, the City of Danville, and to me personally. I apologize for our failure to respond to this situation appropriately. We can do better. In fact, we regularly investigate crimes and thoroughly document the evidence. I can only conclude that this incident was not treated as the serious matter it actually was, and that attitude resulted in an incomplete and faulty investigation.<\/p>\n
I apologize to the Harper family for the loss of their pet and pledge to them that I will make changes in our operation to ensure that nothing like this happens again. No further comments will be made concerning this matter unless new information develops.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Here’s the tough part of trying to report breaking news when I’m able to. I had this story over five days ago but my sources made it clear that it was “Not For Publication”. Oh well…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Danville police officer that shot and killed the dachshund a month ago has lost his job.<\/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":[54,58],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4595","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-breaking-news","category-danville","odd"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pwqFk-1c7","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":6011,"url":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/2009\/12\/20\/danville-polices-dog-shooting-case-back-in-the-news\/","url_meta":{"origin":4595,"position":0},"title":"Danville Police’s dog shooting case back in the news…","author":"SouthsideCentral","date":"December 20, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"And in his letter, former chief Neal Morris takes some shots of his own at Danville Police Chief Philip Broadfoot. Hoo boy. Police chief owes officer an apology; Retired chief takes Broadfoot to task We need a Big Board to look at all of the issues that this letter raises...\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":4266,"url":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/2009\/06\/17\/lets-talk-about-the-danville-dog-shooting\/","url_meta":{"origin":4595,"position":1},"title":"Let’s talk about the Danville dog shooting.","author":"SouthsideCentral","date":"June 17, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Adam Tomer changed my opinion on it last night. By now, everybody's heard about the Danville police officer that shot a miniature dachshund and the public outrage. SouthsideCentral attended Chief Broadfoot's first press conference on the matter and thought he handled it well. He had no choice but to support\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":5121,"url":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/2009\/08\/26\/danville-police-dead-dog-uh-oh\/","url_meta":{"origin":4595,"position":2},"title":"Danville Police. Dead dog. Uh-oh.","author":"SouthsideCentral","date":"August 26, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"But there's a BIG difference between this and the \"McLean vs. Dachshund\" incident. A very BIG difference. From a Danville Police Dept. news release... Today at approximately 7:43AM Danville Police responded to the intersection of Kinzer Avenue and Central Street in reference to a pit bull dog chasing children who\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":4740,"url":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/2009\/07\/20\/the-register-bee-stops-a-trainwreck\/","url_meta":{"origin":4595,"position":3},"title":"The Register & Bee stops a trainwreck.","author":"SouthsideCentral","date":"July 20, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"But there's plenty more around if you look carefully... The Danville Register & Bee's website offers people the chance to comment on most articles posted. However, certain \"people\" have turned the comment feature into an unmoderated free-for-all. It gets hilarious yet troubling quite often. Well, we all know the story\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":4595,"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":4198,"url":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/2009\/06\/11\/danville-police-department-press-conference-live-recap\/","url_meta":{"origin":4595,"position":5},"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":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4595","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=4595"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4595\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4595"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4595"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4595"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}