Mastiff Attacks LAPD Officers

Los Angeles:  On Tuesday, June 13, 2006, around 11:30 a.m., officers from West Valley Area  Station responded to a radio call of a screaming man, in the 7600 block of Topanga Canyon Boulevard.  When police arrived at the apartment building, they were met by a man who directed them to the unit from which loud screams had been heard.

Due to the nature of the call for service, officers immediately attempted to contact the residents, but received no response from within the apartment.  Believing that someone may have been in danger, the officers entered and began searching when a large Mastiff dog charged from one of the rooms.  It bared its teeth and lunged at the officers.  Police Officer James Woods fired two rounds, missing the animal.  The dog retreated to a back bedroom. 

The officers continued their search and found the dog's owners who were unaware of any problem.

The officers were not injured.

Police Officer James Woods, is 43-years old and has 17 years with the LAPD. 

Comments

[Dave]

Either this article is poorly written or badly reported because it makes little sense and leaves out key facts.

If the residents were unaware of any problem, what were the police even doing inside the apartment? It sounds like they broke into the wrong unit. Did they ever find where the loud screams were coming from? The article doesn't tell us.

The headline "Mastiff Attacks LAPD Officers" is also seriously misleading. It makes it sound like a dog attacked them unprovoked in a yard. This dog *was* provoked -- the police broke into the *wrong* apartment. The animal was only doing its job and lawfully protecting its owners. And lunging and bearing teeth are hardly an "attack" -- the dog was warning by its behavior. If it had bit the officer, that would've been an attack.

Had the officers killed the dog, its likely the owners could've sued the LAPD and won. The cops were in the wrong apartment. The dog was protecting its owners.

The dog is made out to be a villain here, but the real story is the dog is a hero. The cops were where they shouldn't be. The dog was protecting its owners by warning, not attacking. The headline should be: "Dog Protects Owner After LAPD Breaks Into Wrong Apartment."

[Randall T]

Dave,

Maybe it is you who didn’t read or comprehend the article correctly. In the first paragraph it is clear that the officers arrived, made contact with (possibly) the RP. Without enumerating, it is obvious to me that the officers were provided with additional information regarding the screams. After receiving no response at the door, the officers had an obligation, under exigent circumstances, to force their way into the apartment --- remember the call wasn’t of a dog barking but of a man screaming.

Once inside the apartment for some unknown reason, the tenant(s) still did not make their presence known ---- I hope by now you can envision what the officers are experiencing. Three scenarios to consider when determining the officers state of mind: 1.) There’s been a crime in progress and someone needs help; 2.) There continues to be a crime in progress and someone needs help; 3.) Someone is in need of immediate medical attention for a non-criminal related situation. All three situations, based on the original call, give the police the authority to investigate further, dog or no dog!

Before the officers can determine the reason for the screams, they’re met by a Bullmastiff who undoubtedly is protecting his/her owner. This fact in no way mitigates this situation, because despite the dog’s ferociousness, the officers still have that same obligation to investigate and determine the cause of the screams. Imagine the public scorn had the officers left the apartment after being charged by a dog. WOW, you would have really had a field day writing about the ineptness of the LAPD and how the departments officers, when challenged by a dog, turn and run. Or maybe using your logic, the officers should have never entered the apartment at all. That way, in this heat, within three or four days LAPD could have returned to investigate complaints of a strong and unusual stench coming from the same location.

Dave, bone-up on your police procedures and criminal law because these officers did the right thing. Their marksmanship may have been a bit questionable, and yes the dog was reacting like we expect dogs to react, but to say the officer “BROKE” into the “WRONG” apartment is quite a stretch of the imagination. Something else to ponder; if the residents were home, why didn’t they just answer the door??? This whole situation on the part of the tenants stinks and thank God two intelligent and intuitive LAPD officers handled this complex call. And no, I am not an LAPD cop.

[Jeff]

Randall T, thanks for setting Dave straight.

[Wayne Wright]

Randall, your sarcasm and self-importance notwithstanding it sure sounds to me like the police were in the wrong apartment. Dave's point is still valid. The article is deficient and a big piece is missing. If the owners were okay then the cops were in the wrong apartment. Obviously the screams didn't come from there. Police procedures do not call for officers to enter the wrong dwelling in response to a police call just as they're not supposed to enter the wrong bank in responding to a bank robbery call or enter the wrong residence to investigate a robbery. Where did the screams really come from? Obviously not from the wrong apartment which the officers entered. Did the man who called the police file a false report? Was he investigated? Where there any real screams at all? Did a follow up ever determine where the screams originated? Randall you're imagining all sorts of things this article doesn't include. Perhaps that sort of armchair "analysis" is needed when reading the "Psychic Times" or "UFO Weekly" but this story is seriously deficient in facts and the pieces don't add up for those of us who prefer our news in the factual realm. (The article says it was a mastiff Randy -- don't know where you got that it was a "bull mastiff" unless spirits from the beyond are whispering in your ear.) All told the slant of the article makes out like the officers were attacked by a dog in the wrong and as Dave noted in his post the dog was not the villain. (Also Randy, people are not required to answer their doors. This isn't Cuba or North Korea and a lack of answering a door is not prima facie probable cause.) The story doesn't add up, your tea leaves and crystal ball and tarot cards notwithstanding Randall. You're presuming the cops are heroes here but there's not enough information to conclude that. They were in the wrong apartment and couldn't hit an allegedly dangerous target at close range. And if you think this was a "complex call" you're only showing your infamiliarity with both criminal law and police procedure. It was a fairly routine call that sounds badly handled. This story makes the LAPD look foolish so one wonders why it was even posted here in the first place.

[Jerry Smith]

In the 7/2/06 DAILY NEWS, I read that "Los Angeles Authorities" have caused the arrest of some guy in Westfield, Mass. for having fobidden immages of Brad Pitt and his girlfriend in his digital camera. Apparently the US Secret Service is somehow involved as well.

Do you guys still do movie star patrol? If so, please arrest those making unkind comments about Star Jones.

Whatta deal!

Jerry Smith

[Jeff]

Wayne and Dave, I am curious about something. When you watch a medical procedure on the Discovery Channel are you as quick to hoot and hollar about the surgeon being a buffoon by making the incision in the wrong location or crimping off the wrong artery? When you look at a bridge do you exclaim that the civil engineer was a dim-wit as he did not use the appropriate grade of steel for the support beams? Then why is it that yourself and so many others are quick to negatively criticize the actions of professionals who practice policing? Stick to and be good at whatever it is that you do for a living just as police officers who are the policing professionals, with hundreds and hundreds of hours of training and certifications, will also do.

[Robert CJ Parry]

Dave, Randall & Wayne-

There are other possibilities, you know. People sometimes lie. Maybe the coppers were in the right place, and the folks just decided it was a personal matter, not worthy of official involvement, so they said nothing.

Also, what activity between a man and a woman might cause loud screams, distraction sufficient to delay a response to the door, and yet still render the statement "oh, everything is just fine here, officer" to be perfectly accurate? Um, yeah, that one. Wouldn't be the first time.

Perhaps there was a good reason to leave, ahem, revealing facts out fo the release. Cops shot at the doggie, doggie lived, that's the news here.

[Mary Landesman]

I agree with Dave and Wayne Wright. Something about this story smells very very fishy. What were the cops doing inside this apartment? The whole screams explanation sounds like it was manufactured later to cover up some kind of blunder or worse.

It's unfortunate this blog now seems to be taken over by police groupies and police wannabes who insist on trashing anyone who questions the LAPD. Cops are public servants. Their actions and mistakes should be questioned by the taxpayers who pay their salaries, without being harassed by starry eyed cop fetishists.

[Jeff]

I don't know about everyone else, Mary, but to put the ixsnay on your conspiracy theory, I've been in the policing business for 15 yrs now...no fetishes here.

[Pete Malloy]

Mary, how is it you can post something 5 days after the news story and after 7 other blogs and still ask, "What were the cops doing inside the apartment?"

What do you think they were doing? They got a radio call to go there. They didn't just pull their car over and say, "Hey, lets screw with the people who live in those apartments."

They were met by the caller who pointed out the apartment where screams were coming from. What would YOU do? What would you want the cops to do if you called them? They knocked on the door. Several times and hard im sure.

You may or not like the fact that they entered the home, but the law allows them to when they feel its necessary.

The screams explanation were not manufactured. You can go to the dispatch center and retrieve the call for service to verify that. Duh. . .

I don't know who is a cop groupie or wanna-be. It sounds to me by reading the above blogs that some people are using their brain and seeing the "other side of the coin" inside of thinking the cops have done something wrong just because the story made the paper. Everyone is so quick to jump the gun and find fault with the LAPD.

I'd like to know what you would have done in that situation. And believe me, if you say walk away from the door without knowing if someone was hurt inside, you would be the next blog topic!

[Quinn]

>I've been in the policing
>business for 15 yrs now

Of course, there's no way to verify this, so you could be the most extreme form of police fetishist, the poseur who pretends online to be in "the policing business" in order to lend yourself an imagined credibility and to create a sense of camaraderie with your imagined confederates.

[Jeff]

Quinn, you're absolutely right. There is no way to verify it. Also, if you read an entry under the "Chief of Police" category you can see that I don't agree with everything that the LAPD does. Nevertheless, you just gotta take my word for it, I guess. But enough about me already. What category do you fall into?

And if I may, let me leave you and the others who are quick to find fault with every move we make. Your wife and child are home alone in that apt when "Parolee Pete", who was recently let out of the joint because he insisted that he has found the Lord who has changed his life forever, helps himself inside. After he pistol whips your wife until her teeth are knocked out and can only see with her swelled eyes enough to watch your child brutally sodomized and screaming until he finishes his "love making" session and slits your child's throat. He then begins round-two on your wife but fortunately a concerned neighbor has heard your child's screams and does the responsible thing by calling the police to investigate. Would you appreciate it if the ofcrs who respond knock on the door that the neighbor heard the screams coming from and after no response make entry into and continue with the investigation? Puts everything into a whole new perspective, huh? As Malloy said, had they not gone inside you would have been on this thing flapping your lips about how the ofcrs should have made entry! You're damned if you do and damned if you don't!

[z]

How about this..If you dont like the way LAPD officers handle your calls... THEN MOVE!!!

[chonchers three]

Quinn,, Anybody that is in the "Policing Business" does not say they are in the "policing Business." So please dont act like you are when you're not, like the groupies you described. By the way what does your entry have to do with the dog entry anyway you nitwit.

[Former Editor]

Pete Malloy and others, you're in such a hurry to blindly and unquestioningly back up the cops, you're not paying any attention to what the other people here are posting. You presume any kind of post-facto questioning is criticism of the police. You presume anything the police do is correct and faultless. That kind of thinking would do away with review boards and, heck, trials for that matter. That probably works in a totalitarian state, but it doesn't work here in Los Angeles, which is in a free country. The public has a right and a responsibility to question a deficient news story like this when public servants and tax dollars are involved.

The gentleman who started this thread correctly noted the pieces in this story don't fit. He wasn't faulting the police. He was faulting the person who wrote up the report here. Some of you are apparently happy to make up your own "facts" to fill in the blanks, but that's insufficient for intelligent readers.

Some of this is a simple "who, what, where, when, why, how" journalism problem. If the LAPD is going to maintain this blog and report police news, it needs to follow the basic conventions of reportage. This piece about the dog would be sent back by any editor as insufficient. Chief Bratton sat down with journalists before creating this blog, but apparently he and his crew need to reminded to pay a bit more attention to journalism fundamentals.

Some glaring problems with this story are:

(1) The source of the screams are never explained.

(2) Whether the screams were investigated, after the police realized the residents in the apartment in question were all right, is never revealed.

(3) If the screams were investigated, the outcome is never explained.

(4) The shooting itself is never explained, both whether it was necessary for the threat posed and how the officer in question could miss a target that was described as such an imminent threat, e.g. close and "attacking."

This last point is the most important because this is the greatest deficiency in the rationale about the animal: if the dog was such a significant threat, why couldn't the police officer hit this close target in daylight hours? Was he possibly firing only a warning shot? Maybe, but this insufficient story never explains as much. You "fact leapers" probably have that all worked out, but in the real world, presumations spun out of thin air are worthless, particularly in a news reporting medium.

One might presume the officer in question is now subject to some type of board of inquiry. Hopefully this blog will update us about this in the future if that is the case.

[Quinn]

>If you dont like the way LAPD
>officers handle your calls...
>THEN MOVE!!!

This is a ludicrous, fascistic, and ugly un-American comment. The LAPD like all city and government employees are public servants. Their salaries are paid by the taxpayers. The taxpayers have a right to question both how their tax dollars are spent and how government employees act. To suggest otherwise or to deny this right is patently unpatriotic and flatly un-American. The LAPD must conform to the public's will, not the other way around.

[Lt. De La Torre]

I'm a bit surprised by the number of comments we have received on this one post. To those of you who questioned the tactics, officer's response and eventual entering of the residence, all of these issues will be looked at by a Use of Force Review Board.

The summary/results of this incident will eventually be posted on the Police Commission web site page, thus available for all to read and arrive at their own conclusion.

I'm just very happy that the concerned officers were not physically hurt.

We have some of the finest officers in the world, who on a daily basis make some very heroic decisions. Keep up the good work.

[Algonquin J. Calhoun]

--all of these issues will be looked at by a Use of Force Review Board--

Yes indeed! The LAPD will waste their precious manpower investigating a dog-shooting in which no one was hit by any gunfire.

If a civilian shot at a wild dog and missed, it would have been investigated by 2 patrol Officers only and the case would have been closed.

But since it's an LAPD shooting, the Officer's actions will be scrutinized ala the JFK shooting.

What a waste of resources and money!

The Detectives wasting their time investigating a non-hit shooting could be better utilized investigating the hundreds of unsolved homicide cases out there.

Nah, that's not the goal of the LAPD anymore, who am I fooling....

[Grant]

How does a 17 year vet miss a dog inside a small apartment? Trying not to shoot his partner. Smart guy.

[z]

Its simple if you think that your taxes pays for a great deal of the officer's salary your very wrong? And if you want to believe it does then like anything else, I pay I dont like the service then i go somewhere else? You want to be american.. then excercise your right to move not just excercise your right to complain...BE AN AMERICAN AND DO SOMETHING ABOUT LAPD'S POLICIES!!! Im surprised also LT about how many people are monday morning quarterbacking this dog shooting....when they should be thanking LAPD for even sharing the info with them. The cold hard fact is that this goes on everyday and LAPD doesnt tell every single incident..and there is much more that goes on that citizens dont know about. So worry about something more important like ARE THE LOS ANGELES POLICE OFFICERS HAPPY SO THEY CAN DO A GREAT JOB AND KEEP US SAFE..AND IF NOT WHAT AS A CITIZEN OF L.A. CAN I DO ABOUT IT....... HOW ABOUT WAVE AS THEY DRIVE BY.. THATS A START!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Paul186]

IMO it sounded like not
enough info reported to draw conclusions. If I chime in
with assumptions an added shred of info could make me
feel I wasted my time in analyzing what little there is. Go ez,
people, there are overzealous
incompetents in every field
and there are cops who died
in the line of duty of protecting the
average citizen.