Police in California receive death threats after killing man’s dog

The police officers caught on tape last week fatally shooting a dog in front of a crowd of people are now facing criticism and even death threats from animal lovers across the nation.

A video of last Sunday’s incident quickly went viral, directing a
wave of condemnation towards the Hawthorne, California Police
Department.

Three police officers were involved in the arrest of 52-year-old
Leon Rosby, who they say was disturbing a crime scene by
videotaping it and blasting music from his car. While
apprehending the man, Rosby’s pet Rottweiler, Max, jumped out of
an open car window and approached the officers while barking. One
policeman shot the dog four times, causing the writhing animal to
slowly bleed to death on the street.

Since the cell phone video was posted on YouTube, the officers
and their families have received threatening phone calls, emails
and Facebook messages. In some cases, California residents who
share the same name as the officers have mistakenly received
threats. A shop in Glendale was flooded with angry phone calls
because the storeowner’s name is the same as Hawthorne police
spokesman Lt. Scott Swain.

“These aren’t just threats of ill-will,” Hawthorne Police
Chief Robert Fager told NBC News. “These are absolutely
threats to life.”

The police department issued a statement on Wednesday apologizing
for the fatal shooting of the dog and the pain it inflicted upon
animal lovers.  The statement garnered thousands of critical
comments on the department’s website and Facebook page.

“Unfortunately, in the midst of this social media response,
fallacies are being perpetuated and outright criminal threats are
being made,” the police department wrote. “In the public
forum of various websites, department employees have been
misidentified as the officer who shot. This has led to criminal
threats of harm directed not only at city employees, but also at
similarly-named public citizens who just happen to live and work
in our surrounding region.”

But the department’s apology did little to calm the criticism,
and angry pet lovers have continued to threaten the police and
condemn their actions.

“You know you’re a disgrace when people would rather see your
officers dead than an innocent dog. Find a hole, crawl in
it,” Facebook user Harmit Tamber wrote on the police
department’s website.

Even Anonymous, the computer hacking activist group, has
commented on the issue. The group has threatened to retaliate
against the Hawthorne Police Department, and on Wednesday a
person wearing a Guy Fawkes mask appeared in YouTube video with a
digitally altered voice to call the shooting
“unacceptable” while promising to take action. A police
source told the Daily Breeze that its website had been attacked
on Monday, and was down for several days. It is not clear who was
behind the attack, but some suspect Anonymous may have been
involved.

During a July 3 press conference, the man whose dog was killed
went on camera to ask people to “just calm down” and to
stop threatening the families of the officers. Even though he
lost his beloved pet, he insisted that “not all police
officers are bad.”

But since then, the threats have continued. The three police
officers involved in the incident have been pulled from street
duty to avoid any confrontations with angry pet lovers.

Republished with permission from: RT