Policy on Weapon Selection for Downing Animals

[jnc36rcpd]

The department did purchase a .22 rifle for use by animal services officers to put down injured animals. I suspect it still collects dust in the armory unused. I suspect concerns about training and qualification arose as well as the judgement of the animal services officers. There may also have been legal issues about a department issuing a firearm to people who had not been to a police academy and weren't certified LEO's.

Then they bought the tranquilizer gun until someone thought through the licensing and storage requirements for the drugs involved. I suspect that may still be in the armory.

On one occasion, I wandered through the parking lot between the administration and operations buildings where they were testing net guns. I don't know what happened to that initiative. I guess it could have been used to capture small, compliant animals who didn't run.

[TC215]

2 rounds? I'm assuming throwing off the head count is considered very bad form.

Doing a weapons inspection…she went to the barrel to load back up, and tried to thumb the hammer down instead of using the decocker, letting one fly. She then swept the entire room, sending people diving under tables, and then proceeded to show everyone how she hadn’t done anything wrong, and tried to thumb the hammer down again with predictable results.

One officer came to roll call the next night wearing his ballistic helmet.

[Le Français]

My PD didn't have a policy on what we should use, and I mostly used 12GA slugs for deer and .40 and .22 pistol rounds for smaller animals. One time I located the deer flailing weakly in the roadside underbrush, turned back to my patrol car to grab the shotgun, and returned only to find a random passerby furiously stabbing the deer in the throat with a small penknife. Oooookaaay then.

ETA: Which reminds me of a lawyer I knew in Paris who hunted wild boar with a pack of hounds and a knife. The dogs would grab the boar, and she would wade in and stab it to death. Not my cup of tea.

[KevH]

Here is the Lexipol language that you'll find in most policies in California:

306.7.1 DANGEROUS ANIMALS

Members are authorized to use firearms to stop an animal in circumstances where the animal reasonably appears to pose an imminent threat to human safety and alternative methods are not reasonably available or would likely be ineffective.

In circumstances where there is sufficient advance notice that a potentially dangerous animal may be encountered, department members should develop reasonable contingency plans for dealing with the animal (e.g., fire extinguisher, TASER® device, oleoresin capsicum (OC) spray, animal control officer). Nothing in this policy shall prohibit any member from shooting a dangerous animal if circumstances reasonably dictate that a contingency plan has failed or becomes impractical.

306.7.2 INJURED ANIMALS

With the approval of a supervisor, a member may euthanize an animal that is so badly injured that human compassion requires its removal from further suffering and where other dispositions are impractical.

Stray or abandoned injured animals that may be moved or taken to an available veterinarian should not be euthanized. With supervisor approval, abandoned injured animals (with the exception of dogs and cats) may only be euthanized after a reasonable search to locate the owner has been made. Injured dogs and cats found without their owners shall be taken to an appropriate veterinarian for determination of whether they should be treated or humanely destroyed (Penal Code § 597.1).

When I've had to euthanize deer in the past I've just used a shotgun with slugs and have been cognizant of the backdrop (usually dirt).

[DaBigBR]

No real policy on weapon selection. Must get permission from a supervisor. Like many here, we've had some doozies.

In one incident, two pretty new officers responded to a deer standing on the edge of the interstate and found a buck with half his rack sheared off standing on the shoulder, stunned, and bleeding. Bell obviously rung hard. The supervisor would not let them shoot the deer because it was standing. They couldn't scare it off, so one of them grabbed the remaining antlers and escorted it down into the ditch. A testament to how scrambled the buck's brain probably was and how naive the officers were to the danger of a deer that close. Half an hour later, he was back in the road and somebody else went up and shot him.

Once I was training a guy and somebody brought a rabbit with both back legs broken up to the front desk. The on duty supervisor gives this shoebox of broken rabbit to my new guy and tells him to "take care of it, and no, you can't shoot it." We leave the PD and he asks me what to do with it. I told him if it was me, I'd shoot it and not tell anybody and if he wanted to do that, I would never tell a soul. I also told him he could throw it in a ditch, club it over the head, or otherwise find a way to end its suffering. He got back to the car from tossing it in the ditch and decided to go back and bash its skull so it wouldn't lay there until it died of thirst or got grabbed by a predator.

Mostly anymore, guys with rifles use the rifle. Especially those with suppressors. It's relatively quiet, they don't miss, and the rounds don't over penetrate. We've had a couple hung up in fences and stuff where a heart/lung slug shot was safest. Really up to the officer.

[MD7305]

Of the two departments I've worked for neither specified what weapon to use for euthanizing animals. My previous department issued shotguns and that's what I primarily used and I always found it effective. My current agency doesn't issue shotguns so most everyone uses their handgun.

I've witnessed an officer try to dispatch a groundhog with an expandable baton downtown, in broad daylight. It drew a crowd. Another was a new trainee just discharged from the USMC who pulls up to a deer that just got hit and was flailing about. He calmly walks up to the deer, removes his pocket knife, makes eye contact with the in-car camera, and then cuts the deer's throat. It was epic. Blood everywhere. Then there was the female officer who had to do a mag change to kill a raccoon. It's really a freestyle event.

[Chuck Whitlock]

We don't have a set policy on what weapon to use. We are supposed to contact a game warden if it is a game animal (i.e. deer). I've never quite understood the logic that, if the animal needs to be dispatched to end its suffering, we ought to wait for someone else to come and do it......thereby prolonging its suffering.....but I digress. Most all of the game wardens green light us over the phone.

[Bergeron]

I'm non-LE, but I'm curious, which types of people or sub-organizations are typically responsible for generating policy on a topic like downed animals?

In my non-experienced and rural mind, the most immediate risks or problems would be shoot-throughs, misses, and ricochets- real problems, as I've read about harm and even death to by-standers- but which mostly also seem like marksmanship and awareness issues

[Wise_A]

Not on the road m'self, but our guys typically use their service pistols. They are issued M&Ps in .45ACP, but you'll find a smattering of different .45s and a few 9mms because we can't even get our uniforms to look the same. We also issue patrol shotguns.

Some of my favorite related radio transmissions:

"Deer dispatched...uh, 10 rounds."

"Possum was rabid. Dispatched, one rou---OH SHIT!"
"Dispatch to 4196, you secure?"
"4196, yeah...*panting*...Possum dispatched, six rounds."

[MVS]

Not sure that we had an actual policy back in the day, other than that you had to report a discharge. I have used the issued pistol on dogs and deer, and the patrol shotgun on a badly injured horse at the request of the owner. A neighboring department used their AR's IIRC on a wayward Buffalo. https://www.mlive.com/news/grand-rap...s_farm_ru.html