The shooting of a two-year old black Labrador mix dog by a Coeur d’Alene police officer last week has attracted deservedly unfavorable nationwide news media attention to Coeur d’Alene, Idaho.
In a Saturday skewspaper article headlined Image problem dogs police, the Coeur d’Alene Press reported “Widmyer [Coeur d’Alene Mayor Steve Widmyer] said the CPD [Coeur d’Alene Police Department ] is going to do an internal review of the dog shooting and have it reviewed by a third party before releasing the report. ‘We want to make sure that we have covered all of our bases,’ he said.”
OpenCdA is not exactly sure how a CPD “internal review” and its report differs from a full investigation of the incident, but we firmly believe that a full investigation and report is not only warranted but essential for the public to understand the shooting incident.
Of one thing we are absolutely certain: The report prepared by the CPD should not be edited by or on instructions from a third party as Widmyer’s remarks imply it could be. We don’t know who the “third party” would be, but we believe the public would prefer and is entitled to hear the CPD’s version of what happened. We believe that the citizens of Coeur d’Alene and Kootenai County are fully capable of determining if the CPD’s version is plausible.
As for Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, Mayor Steve Widmyer’s wanting “… to make sure we have covered all of our bases,” OpenCdA is concerned that it is not “our bases” Mayor Widmyer is interested in covering by not releasing the CPD report before it is reviewed by a third party.
Hopefully, the investigation will see the insanity of this incident, because if it does not, we can all be seriously concerned and alarmed for our own safety as citizens in this area.
The shooting of the woman in Sandpoint almost makes more sense than this dog shooting. I still can’t wrap my head around an officer shooting a dog inside a vehicle. According to reports, the woman in Sandpoint had a chronic history of violence, abuse and substance abuse. She even stabbed her ex husband in the back, so it is plausible that she was threatening people with her knife and was an imminent threat to the public. However, it is sad to hear about any type of police shooting in order to disarm these kinds of situations which evidently took three officers.
It can be scary tho. Once, we had a bicycle stolen. An officer started to bang on our door at about 1:00 A.M – we were startled. Then after we identified the bike, he was very critical and ‘put out’ letting us know that it was our fault because it was not chained. We were treated horribly and he took the bicycle for evidence. We never got it back, it was going to cost us 10 bucks. Incidents like this just do not make sense.
Comment by Stebbijo — July 13, 2014 @ 9:42 am
Stebbijo,
If the Coeur d’Alene police officers expect to be deemed worthy of the public’s trust and confidence, then a timely, thorough, and objective investigation must be completed and made public in its entirety. Those honest, professional, diligent officers will demand that, whereas the lazy, incompetent dead-enders will fear it and fight it.
Comment by Bill — July 13, 2014 @ 11:14 am