By Darren Smith, Weekend Contributor
We previously discussed a disturbing report of a family pet shot by Rains County Sheriff’s Deputy Jerrod Dooley, HERE. The incident stemmed when homeowner Cole Middleton arrived home about 11:00 AM and discovered his residence had been burglarized and several items, including all his firearms were stolen. Several hours later, while Cole was working in a field harvesting grass, Deputy Dooley arrived. The deputy then claimed he was threatened by Cole Middleton’s cow dog Candy when she darted out from a pickup truck and was shot. Despite being begged by Cole to put down Candy to end her suffering, Deputy Dooley instead calls for help and pulls back in his patrol car to wait for “backup”. Cole, having no firearms to perform a coup de grâce, suffered the terror of having to drown Candy in a bucket to end it for her.
Newly released dash cam video capturing much of the incident shows Deputy Dooley arriving at the residence and pulling behind a pickup truck. Candy is lying down in the bed of the truck and when the patrol vehicle pulls up she stands and begins barking with tail wagging. Candy continues to bark and then jumps out of the bed and is subsequently shot by Deputy Dooley. Shortly thereafter, Cole walks up and Deputy Dooley informs him that he had to shoot his dog. Cole is understandably distressed yet the deputy calls for backup saying he needs “help” and is shown backing out of the driveway.
Sheriff David Traylor fired Deputy Dooley and later stated to a KLTV reporter that it was for Dooley’s safety because of numerous threats made against him and the department. He added that it is the safest move for the department and the deputy.
In the three decades Sheriff Traylor stated he was in law enforcement, he had never seen a department receive so many threats from a single incident. Ultimately he said thas was the reason Dooley was fired. The hundreds of calls from outraged citizens was beginning to detract from other responsibilities the department is charged with and Sheriff Traylor believed having Dooley on the force put he and other deputies at risk. Dooley had been employed for six months. The sheriff confirmed that a criminal investigation into the shooting is underway and is headed by the Texas Rangers.
Sheriff Traylor stated his department is implementing policy changes he hopes will reduce the likelihood of a similar tragedy reoccurring; such as waiting in the car if possible or honking a horn to have the dog’s owner to come by and address the dog. But the sheriff was pragmatic about these policies by adding “you can put the policies out there and follow them as best you can…but it will be a matter of common sense.”
Candy’s owner Cole Middleton said he is glad that Deputy Dooley was fired and still hoped there would be a criminal prosecution for the shooting.
One reason for Deputy Dooley’s sudden departure from the Rains County Sheriff’s Office might be that as a six month employee, he is likely on probation and in this respect is subject to termination at the pleasure of the sheriff before a civil service tenure is afforded him. During the probationary time it gives the department an opportunity to vet the employee for suitability for a career with the department.
In the opinion of your author, the decision of Sheriff Traylor was sound. Deputy Dooley in this incident displayed a fundamental lack of proper discretion in dealing with a use of force issue and when faced with a despondent person (Cole Middleton) over having shot his dog, Dooley chose to call for “Help” and flee the scene. Calling for Help in the law enforcement world is a far more urgent distress call than calling for “backup”. Such a call, paired up with him backing out of the scene, will cause responding officers to believe a dire threat is being faced by the calling officer. This causes responding officers to respond faster and puts them at a higher risk and takes them away from even other in-progress calls. This type of incident was not something that Deputy Dooley should have backed out of. It is very indicative of future performances where he is going to be likely one who will call for help / backup at the drop of a hat and in a rural county environment where he will seldom be partnered up with another deputy, he likely is not suited to be a deputy sheriff.
He also showed cowardice in not wanting to face the situation of putting down Candy when decency and the law demanded the coup de grâce mercy be given. And how quick will he have been to shoot another animal or person when faced with a difficult situation where the use of a firearm is clearly not warranted otherwise. Jarrod Dooley’s actions are indicative that it is not worth the risk in him being afforded the duties of a deputy sheriff.
It seems clear that in some measure, the Middleton family will see some justice in the matter.
By Darren Smith
Sources:
KLTV
Rains County Sheriff’s Office (Photo Credit)
The views expressed in this posting are the author’s alone and not those of the blog, the host, or other weekend bloggers. As an open forum, weekend bloggers post independently without pre-approval or review. Content and any displays or art are solely their decision and responsibility.
Nick,
Bobble heads do occasionally come unattached. Why not just respond with an answer, you always say how refreshing honesty is, maybe today it’s over rated.
I’m beginning to understand the outrage of celebrities, stalked by the paparazzi.
Mr. Spinelli
I It was a description of what Mr. Spinelli did. He told us to end it. Mr. Spinelli said he thought it should have been ended two hours ago. He also offered some other instructions.
I think we were so shocked at his actions, that we just mutely followed his instructions. Further, Mr. Spinelli has a way with implying that he is the moderator. If that is the case, I am absolutely fine with it. I just request that Mr. Spinelli tell us that is the case – Prof Turley has given him the authority.
Please respond.
Darren,
Wouldn’t it be wonderful if you have found a problem that may be related to the eating of comments!
Darren, You are a computer ace! Good post.
Paul S
I am not intimidated by you. I have been intimidated by Mr. Spinelli. No more.
Annoyed could be a part of intimidation., just check your crackers to make sue nobody’s licked the salt off.
According to Annie, whom you all seem to revere, no one is required to answer any question from any other commentor.
Paul, The protocol when I’m contacted as a PI and for whatever reason I don’t take the case is to be totally confidential about it. W/ HIPPA, I would assume the same confidentiality w/ be afforded this shitbird cop. But, I reckon the doctor knows best! For his sake, I hope he’s right.
I see what the problem is with the security certificate.
The certificate is issued for the name *.wordpress.com (the * means all subdomains, such as www, on wordpress) the certificate should be issued to *.jonathanturley.org
The name mismatch is causing the web browser to flag this as a security error.
I don’t know if this is something easily (or cheaply) correctable but I’ll research it and let Jonathan know what is involved.
One of the least controlled areas in certification is LEOs unless the charter calls for examination etc then they are pretty much free to do what they want.
Darren,
Thanks for the information – that little sneaky “s”.
Charlton – my problem with your comment was that you refused to deal with the one person. You seemed to prejudge them. Let me quote you
“I have already been contacted to do a re-evaluation on this officer, and refused to do it. In some cases, I already know enough to recognize a lost cause when I see it.”
Darren: Good analysis/conclusions.
While Mr. Dooley was (justifiably) fired, there is a systemic problem with many law enforcement officers – ego.
That ego – or better said, the fear of diminished standing – often leads to cops using excessive force. Cops fear humiliation (we all do, but cops are armed and can often count on official protection) and will do most anything to avoid being humiliated (or perceived as being humiliated – normal citizens endure far more every day in the course of living).
As an example, a cop will charge into a gunfight and respond appropriately as the situation develops. Most cops however are terrified of the humiliation implicit in being beaten and will use any force necessary to avoid that situation.
While everybody fears a beating, I believe that cops are terrified of the loss of “face” that a beating entails and will kill anybody or anything to avoid that situation.
I suspect that Mr. Dooley shot the dog because he was afraid – partly fear of a bite, but more likely fear of being thought less of a man because a little dog bit a big, fat cop.
Don’t know what the answer is, but cops need to analyze situations tactically rather than egotistically. If that means backing down, so be it.
I checked the link that was having the issues mentioned in Chuck’s comment. It is rather benign.
The issue is that the link was secure HTTP. (https:) and there is an issue with the site’s security certificate, such as mismatch with the url, expired, or other technical error. I haven’t found out exactly but I will research it later.
I corrected the link. to make things work better next time, http: can be used for links and not https
Charlton S. Stanley, PhD, ABPP,
I changed the link from “https” to “http” and then it worked fine.
Dr. Stanley,
Bless you.
Raff,
No different from putting someone on administrative leave until an investigation is complete. I have no idea what Paul’s problem is, but he has become knee-jerk contrarian. The ankle-biting is both annoying and distracting.
Thanks feynman & rafflaw,
I looked up some tech stuff on the warning page, it said: If you understand what’s going on, you can tell Firefox to start trusting this site’s identification. Even if you trust the site, this error could mean that someone is tampering with your connection.
Don’t add an exception unless you know there’s a good reason why this site doesn’t use trusted identification.
I am going to climb under the desk and press the go ahead to it button and see what happens.
raff
do you use Firefox, too?
Dredd,
When I got the email notice about this new post and clicked the embedded link in the email, I got a warning notice from Firefox that it was an untrusted link. However, my antivirus software is set to “paranoid” and it did not activate a warning, so figured it is a Firefox glitch. I loaded from my bookmark and the page loaded without a warning.
Dredd,
I received a warning that the site might not be trustworthy, but just clicked on go to site and it went right to the 2013 article.