Drug raid and death/injury of pets in Columbia, MO-plenty of blame to go around- graphic video

A pit bull dead, a corgi injured. Both defending their family. After reading the accounts of the drug raid gone terribly wrong in Columbia, MO I find it so sad for the innocent involved (the child and pets), and outraged at the whole set of common sense errors that were made. And I am not talking just about the swat team either, although there appears to have been many mistakes made there. Parents that would put their children in a situation where something like this could possibly happen are not without blame by any means. You do a crime; you put your family at risk too. In this case a small amount of drugs were found: most of us would still be upset if a lot of drugs were found. A child was traumatized, pets were injured and killed. I also know that in today's society a person can be accused of anything, at anytime, by anyone-usually anonymously. So I truly hope that more than a tip was involved in the issuance of the warrant.

I am not going to address the right or wrong of the warrant, which will be decided by a higher level of review I would hope. I am just talking about the way the entire thing was handled. I am not totally naive here. I worked for a huge law enforcement agency for decades, albeit in an administrative capacity. But early in my career I did do an internship with them that involved me going on raids. Middle of the night, breaking down doors, the whole thing. Not once was an animal shot, and there were animals present at some of the scenes. I’m not saying it never happened, I’m sure it did, but with planning such situations can be taken into consideration and possibly avoided. The presence of pets, elderly persons, and children, should be taken into account before the raid is initiated If at all possible, and the raid should be executed when the child or children are not at home. I understand the element of surprise, but I also understand how something like this can affect a child. Mistakes are too common- mistaken identities, wrong addresses, bad tips…the list goes on. When law enforcement is involved, the outcome can be tragic. And these types of raids happen daily, dozens of times, if not hundreds of times.

Any dog, whether it is a pit bull, corgi, lab or poodle is going to bark and run toward the door if someone is breaking into its territory during the middle of the night. I’ve got a cat that thinks it’s a dog that does the same thing-would it have been shot too? I also have an old 14 year old dog that is deaf and would probably sleep through it, but would be by my side-if I was the one being apprehended, would he have been harmed? My pets are my family, I would be traumatized, and I’m not seven years old. I would also be so angry I wouldn't be able to verbalize my feelings, especially if it was a "mistake".

I don’t know if the raid was necessary. I also didn’t have the heart to watch the video, knowing what the outcome was. I do know it was a raid that went terribly wrong. By all accounts. Even police officers interviewed across the nation agree with that. It will be a long time before the trust will be rebuilt in that particular community and that is a shame. You can only put so much of a spin on something like this.

Police officers have a difficult, thankless, dangerous job. Some of my best friends are police officers or retired police officers, and most are animal lovers. There are good individuals and bad individuals in any profession. There are laws on the books that need revised. Maybe the "no knock" drug raid is one. One incident like this can wipe away a whole lot of “good and heroic things” that have done by law enforcement. Let’s hope that the situation is studied, and addressed accordingly so that an incident like this never happens again.

Thanks for reading. Keepsake16@yahoo.com