Kickstarted Documentary About Puppycide Close to Donor Goal

The folks at Ozymandias Media
are less than $15,000 short of their $100,000 donation goal to
produce Puppycide, a documentary about the terrible trend
of law enforcement officials unnecessarily shooting citizens’ dogs,
claiming (usually incorrectly) that the pets were behaving in a
threatening fashion.

The studio has 15 days left to reach its goal. Their
Kickstarter page describes more about their project:

When we first learned about puppycide, we assumed that these
must be cases of police responding to threats on their lives from
dogs trained to attack by criminal owners. That couldn’t be further
from the truth. We found scores of videos and news stories about
dogs who were laying down, tails wagging, even running away but
still shot by officers who used lethal force as their first and
only response. 

We were very upset by the footage and stories and felt a
documentary on the topic was in need. We took our cameras on the
road, reaching out to victims and capturing their experiences.

We also began exploring the police perspective, which is a vital
part of this story. While some incidents involve callous officers
too quick with the trigger, we found the issue is much bigger than
that. The lack of repercussions, policy changes, new equipment, or
apologies, demonstrate how systemic this problem is. Experts have
explained in interviews how police officers are not currently
offered the simple training, tools, and support they need to
change.

The trailer features a couple of puppycide cases familiar with
regular Reason readers and an appearance by former Reason editor
and puppycide expert Radley Balko. Also on the Kickstarter page is
a
gallery of photos of dogs that have been shot by police if you
feel like spending Halloween in a deep, angry funk.

As the trailer shows, they’ve done a lot of work on the
documentary so far. This remaining $100,000 is, they explain, to
“travel to incidents as they occur; step-up our inquiries through
Freedom of Information requests of police records; shoot more
interviews with owners, advocates, public figures and police;
research and acquire footage of puppycides caught on tape;
interview experts on dog behavior; participate in police
ride-alongs and trainings; and find a home for the finished
film.”

The Kickstarter page is
here.

More Reason on puppycide here.