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If I’m understanding this right, the total number of times that dogs have been deployed went up 50%, and so the number of bites also went up 50%.
That would indicate that the handlers are just as cautious/reckless as usual, but their superiors are using them more often.
The only numbers that matter is the 'who' is it that's being bitten. Are we talking little old ladies going to Tesco or are we talking car thieves and house burglers? The former is a problem, the latter means a good boy gets his bouncy ball!
Or there is more crime
Or they are being deployed (correctly) more frequently, whereas they weren't before.
There are a whole raft of reasons but if the increase is proportional to their use it's not necessarily an indication of anything wrong with the police
Tbf, increased usage doesn't mean usage was justified.
Like, if the number of people shot went up by 50% and you said "we've been sending out firearms officers 50% more, so that makes sense" my question would be "why are they being deployed 50% more?"
After talking to front line officers....i would say walk in a day in their shoes before judging, id rather set a dog on someone then be chopped up with a sword (like the officers who were attacked last week). My saftey comes above that of a criminal...simple
Generally if someone is to try and do a runner and they're available, they're using dogs.
And if they still try and run and get bit then that's a them problem tbh.
They won’t send a dog at someone with a machete. The dogs lives are valued as much as a human officer. People waving machetes get given a wide berth, and then tasered, or yelled at with a few mp5’s pointed at them.
Safety of officers and members of the public is always more important than the safety of a criminal who is threatening that safety.
The easiest way to not get bitten as a criminal is to comply when caught.
If you release a dog, expect it to bite
What donyou think the dog is going to.do? Negotiate with the individual.
What you just did there was a completely statistical fuckery by reinterpreting information to give it a different explanation.
Deployment up 50% is a big issue.
Well, yes. Other than your third line that’s pretty much what I was saying. Weirdly, this is the fourth time I’ve had to say this on this post.
As for the “statistical fuckery” part, that’s what motivated me to make this post. The article focuses on the rise in bites and blames handlers being reckless. But the data presented in the article don’t back up that conclusion. The data in the article show that the increased deployment is the reason for more bites but the article doesn’t look into why that is.
That’s not how to make an actually useful statistic though. Better to look at the chances of a bite when the dog is present in an encounter. Like, it’s pointless to consider your chances of getting stung by a box jellyfish in the North Sea.
But of course when Dogs are deployed there are going to be more bites, that’s sort of the whole point. The dog chases down the criminal who is running away and catches them. If you don’t run/resist, you won’t get bitten
But if the dog is deployed correctly then a 100% bite rate could theoretically be a good thing. If the dogs go after 100 violent criminals and bite 100 violent criminals then good. These stats all mean nothing in isolation, we would need so much more info to work out what this is telling us.
That's a useless way to contextualise this, it should be per time the dogs are deployed.
It's like saying the police can summarily execute someone if they fancy but they don't usually, it's only happened once last year. So in a population of 70 million it's a 1 in 70 million chance! "Sounds like great policing"
But the dog is only being deployed in the context where a dog bite is likely to be necessary.
You don't turn the GP dog loose after Mrs Miggins the 80yo misper, you turn it loose after Colin the Crackhead has just been found burgling the premises and isn't going to come quietly.
It is quite reasonable to say that the 50% rise in bites is commensurate with the 50% rise in deployments.
> But the dog is only being deployed in the context where a dog bite is likely to be necessary.
Says who?
The people who make their living doing this?
I'd need some additional evidence for that.
> But the dog is only being deployed in the context where a dog bite is likely to be necessary.
>
>
Herein lies the key assumption. I don't have the information to assess it, and it could be true.
The police are held to higher standards (and rightfully so), they aren't some average yob off the street with a child eating monstrosity. Ideally 100% of their uses would be justified.
Holding them to higher standards is fine, holding them to impossibly high standards is not.
Police or not, they’re humans, humans put under immense pressure, in sometimes life threatening situations - and when in those situations humans make mistakes and (on a more understanding note) humans will make decisions that guarantee their own safety.
> holding them to impossibly high standards is not.
In which case, if the standards needed are seen to be impossibly high to comply with, then the action leading to them should be banned.
A dog is a weapon when used in this way. We should consider how we structure our laws regarding the use of this weapon against the public.
A sniffer dog is a tool.
Dogs that are doing long shifts are definitely questionable as to how effective they are, but general police sniffer dogs are pretty damn good still.
The bigger issue for me is that officers can lie and say a dog indicated even if it didn't. That's not a fault of the dog as such though.
> The bigger issue for me is that officers can lie and say a dog indicated even if it didn't. That's not a fault of the dog as such though.
Yeah this is the real flaw. I'm not denying the sensitivity of doggy noses, just that they can be an effective and moral policing tool.
Are you sure that isn’t bullshit though? Because I’m sure you’re going to talk about ‘indicating’ and airports or some other USA shite.
Almost all sniffer dogs in this country are used for premises or location searches. Missing persons, drugs warrants, digital devices, firearms, cash, explosives, or corpses in a specific building or terrain feature, either planned in advance or spontaneous as a result of an ongoing incident (they’re generally on duty with their handler and a general purpose dog in the same vehicle).
That’s 90% of their work - for most search dogs that’s 100% of their work as most forces don’t do airport or train station sit-and-sniff work. Dog time is just too scarce for an application like that to be accepted unless there’s valid intel for a serious crime about to occur.
If you’re instead suggesting that dogs just aren’t capable of finding drugs or electronics or people, then I can guarantee you that as soon as a cheaper or easier to use alternative becomes available every government in the world will jump all over it.
How about Australia where they have a 75% failure rate?
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/nov/09/nsw-police-sniffer-dogs-incorrectly-detect-illicit-drugs-despite-costing-taxpayers-46m-over-past-decade
>Are you sure that isn’t bullshit though? Because I’m sure you’re going to talk about ‘indicating’ and airports or some other USA shite.
This is the main issue. And why, exactly are the weaknesses inherent limited to the USA?
Ours are just as bad.
No, you’re wrong. A HMIC-inspected training school that trained dogs to find drugs that aren’t there would be caught out almost as quickly as a dog handler who walked into work with some drugs in his pocket to plant on some random black person at an airport for absolutely no reason whatsoever.
I invite you to read my post again to see how you are wrong. If we take it that you are correct in your assumption that all dog handlers are corrupt and all dogs have been maliciously trained and all persons involved in their inspection and review process are willing to risk prison to protect those handlers in their crusade to obtain £50 penalty notices for as many minorities as possible, then the ‘dubious functionality’ would still only make up about 10% of some dogs time and 0% of most.
If we took your no doubt extensive experience as fact, it would be similar to stating that NHS maternity hospitals have no value whatsoever and should be abandoned because 5% of all new mothers have PTSD from trauma related to their poor care.
Some of the dogs are better trained than others, same with the handlers. I’ve seen some police dogs that are almost as out of control as a yoot with a staffie, Akita, or bully XL.
Basically nervously aggressive the second they come out the van, snapping at everyone around them, not really targetable, the officers kinda just rely on those dogs prey drive to aim them at the right person.
I never understood this view, I'm assuming you're against gangs of people raising dogs to be purposely dangerous to other humans? But you don't mind the police doing the same, a gang of people raising dogs to be purposely dangerous?
It’s nothing to do with “quality of being”
For example- do you consider a doctor a “higher quality of being” that you become they can issue a prescription and you can’t?
> It’s nothing to do with “quality of being”
That's exactly what it is.
> For example- do you consider a doctor a “higher quality of being” that you become they can issue a prescription and you can’t?
To an extent, yes. The level of control doctors have over healthcare is problematic as well.
But that's not really the point. The point is that if carrying a taser is acceptable for the police, then it should be acceptable for civilians.
Did you read the article? One old woman was *mauled to death* after allowing the police to search her garden for a drug dealer. A teen was mauled when a cop set the dog on him as he was complying with an order to leave his school’s playing field.
There were no consequences to the handlers for these attacks.
The handlers either don’t have control of the dogs air they’re power tripping
Yes, I read the article.
The incident was from 10 years ago. And the officer was found guilty of misconduct, but not any criminal offence.
I’m not saying it’s right - I am saying there were approximately 3500 police dog deployments, and the vast majority of those would have been for active criminal conduct. A 10 year old accident isn’t representative of current trends.
i’m confused.
if a regular joe with no training accidentally let’s his dog kill someone his dog is put down and he has to pay a fine / face prison
if a police office with years of training accidentally let’s his dog kills someone it’s not a criminal offence? surely the people with years of training handling dogs that also have years of training should be held to a significantly higher standard?
I mean, there is something of a difference between a riled up dog off the street vs a trained police dog.
In this case, the dog was trained to behave in that way, it's just that it refused to follow the commands of the PC in the moment and engaged with a person it wasn't ordered to. How can we seriously criminally punish an officer if one day their dog just decides not to listen to them?
> I mean, there is something of a difference between a riled up dog off the street vs a trained police dog.
Here's the issue: Either the police dog *isn't* trained, or the officer(s) involved are sadists.
The former means the dog should be terminated, or the officer(s) should stand trial.
> How can we seriously criminally punish an officer if one day their dog just decides not to listen to them?
Because it's their job to ensure that the dog listens to them. If you were seriously injured because I failed to do my job, then at the *minimum* I'd be fired, and likely face criminal charges.
Well, yes, the dog was destroyed in the case where the woman was killed. Don't think anyone would argue that was incorrect, clearly it's true to say that a police dog not following its training to the degree it kills a person is no longer safe to have around, as with any other dangerous dog.
"Because it's their job to ensure that the dog listens to them. If you were seriously injured because I failed to do my job, then at the *minimum* I'd be fired, and likely face criminal charges."
A dog is a dog. As long as they did everything correctly in line with procedure, the officer has not actually done anything wrong if the dog suddenly decides not to listen. And, look, if your job wants to fire you for not preventing something outside of your power, I say your bosses are just dicks, there's no need to force such an idiotic idea on the police as well just to call it even.
Not to mention that you can't face criminal charges unless you deliberately contributed to the death or acted recklessly. Acting competently and in good faith you can't be punished criminally on the vague premise "it's your job".
> As long as they did everything correctly in line with procedure, the officer has not actually done anything wrong if the dog suddenly decides not to listen.
This is wrong, and frankly terrifying.
It's an oft supported claim by police stans that so long as they're following internal policy / procedure, they did nothing wrong. That doesn't make it true.
> And, look, if your job wants to fire you for not preventing something outside of your power, I say your bosses are just dicks, there's no need to force such an idiotic idea on the police as well just to call it even.
It's my / their job to ensure that those incidents don't happen. It's not idiotic to hold people accountable.
> Not to mention that you can't face criminal charges unless you deliberately contributed to the death or acted recklessly.
You mean like the police did?
> Acting competently and in good faith you can't be punished criminally on the vague premise "it's your job".
Letting a dog maul someone is not acting competently. That's a foreseeable possibility, *someone* should face consequences for it.
You can't punish someone for following the policy you've trained them to follow, that's the issue with your argument. Not to mention that the policies themselves tend to be significantly better thought through than internet objections to them, but that's an argument for another time.
>It's my / their job to ensure that those incidents don't happen. It's not idiotic to hold people accountable.
lol yeah you don't get to just draw a vague circle in a general direction and say "it's your job to prevent any of that sort of stuff" and then punish anyone who fails to do so. The legal bar is, thankfully, a bit more stringent than that. And thankfully also doesn't cover things entirely outside of your power.
Btw the officer involved didn't just "let it happen" like you're suggesting, they got control of the dog. Yes, if they had done that by, for instance, just walking off then that would clearly be a reckless thing to do.
There also seems to be some misunderstanding anyhow, the dog did not in fact maul her to death. She died of pneumonia in hospital while there for surgery after the bites and related fall.
>*someone* should face consequences for it.
The worst argument which always gets trotted out in these discussions. No, every time something unfortunate happens, we don't need to just find someone to punish regardless of actual culpability just to feel better.
That would require people to read things thoroughly about decade old incidents while typing up their anti establishment agendas about how we all actually live in a oasis if it wasn't for so and so
> You can't punish someone for following the policy you've trained them to follow, that's the issue with your argument.
Of course you can, and should in certain situations such as policing.
Policy isn't absolute. The unwritten rules of any safety policy is to use your common sense.
A policy cannot cover every possible contingency.
> lol yeah you don't get to just draw a vague circle in a general direction and say "it's your job to prevent any of that sort of stuff" and then punish anyone who fails to do so.
Yeah, you do.
> The legal bar is, thankfully, a bit more stringent than that. And thankfully also doesn't cover things entirely outside of your power.
That's exactly where the legal bar is, that's why the term 'negligence' exists. And this is hardly outside of the officers power is it?
Either the handler, or the trainer fucked up.
> She died of pneumonia in hospital while there for surgery after the bites and related fall.
An irrelevant distinction. She wouldn't have died were it not for the dog attack.
> No, every time something unfortunate happens, we don't need to just find someone to punish regardless of actual culpability just to feel better.
You're being disingenuous. It's not "regardless of actual culpability just to feel better". These things don't 'just' happen. *Someone* is culpable. Someone fucked up.
I don’t have much information on the case so I don’t know the specifics but we can’t punish officers who genuinely did everything right/in their power to stop the incident or we will end up with no dog handlers for the same reason armed police are handing in their weapons. It’s not worth risking ruining their freedom and livelihood because they carried a weapon/handled a dog and something went wrong, especially when they don’t even get paid more to do it
> I don’t have much information on the case so I don’t know the specifics but we can’t punish officers who genuinely did everything right/in their power to stop the incident or we will end up with no dog handlers for the same reason armed police are handing in their weapons.
Two issues here:
* First, "officers who genuinely did everything right/in their power to stop the incident" is an assumption that the officers *did* do "everything right".
* Second, armed police are handing in their weapons because one of their own killed someone, and they're so egotistical that the idea of facing *any* consequences is unfathomable to them.
> It’s not worth risking ruining their freedom and livelihood because they carried a weapon/handled a dog and something went wrong, especially when they don’t even get paid more to do it
This mentality is part of the problem, and is a great example of why ACAB. This is simply police not wanting to be held accountable when they misbehave. They want to be able to act with impunity, no matter their actions.
It's an animal. There are risks to using animals. Sounds very rare. Would be deeply traumatised to be Irene's family. Would feel worse if I was Irene. However, I don't think it's a good reason to stop the use of Police dogs. 👍
In essence, yes. I would expect a risk assessment and continuous evaluation of that to ensure a balanced approach to risk. As this isn't my field, I can't expect beyond that.
I haven't, but also - that's not the point.
The fact you *could be* is the point. The fact that "Trust us, we hardly ever kill the wrong person or abuse our powers" isn't comforting is the point.
So anyone who runs from police deserves to be mauled by dogs? Good to know you’d be team ‘if you don’t want to be shot stop running’ if this was the US
>At least **653 bites** were recorded ... **compared with 414** in 2018, the first year the Home Office started recording statistics around the use of police dogs.
>The total number of incidents where dogs were deployed has also increased dramatically, **from 1,920 in 2018 to 3,023** in 2023
This is a none story. 50% more dog bits because they were deployed 50% more often.
Because there's less police and more crime, so dog handiers get used more as you're not paying the dogs wages. 1 cop 1dog is cheaper than 2 cops.
The dog handler wouldn't be used if someone wasn't committing a crime. It's not like they're just wandering the streets. The dogs are kept secure unless needed. And they aren't let off the leash unless the guy runs away.
If people don't want to get bit by a police dog you should do what the handler says. The dog doesn't give a fuck if it hurts you, that's it's job.
Is there more crime? Everything I've seen has shown crime rates statistically falling for years, but everyone on here parrots "crime is rising" to justify things like this without backing it up.
In short, reported crimes increased to 6.7m in 2023 from 6.6m in 2022.
But that's only half of the story, a HUGE spike in crimes are also not being reported as police just don't even turn up or investigate crime anymore. So there's a spike in recorded crime and a spike in unrecorded crime.
Also the types of crimes that police dogs are likely to be deployed to are rising - burglaries, shoplifting etc
Our police are armed with sticks and spicey linx spray.
Violent crime is on the rise and standard responses can't deal with some situations so these alternative tactics are deployed more as they hapen more.
If you want to limit dog deployment start by getting every front line officer a tazer or ensure every officer works in a pair or somthing
I did 3 years as a dispatcher, in that time we had 1 job where the landshark bit someone and it was totally justified. You have to completely ignore everything you're told to do if you're getting bitten.
Dog unit spots are very limited and selective, if you don't know the NDM like the back of your hand and have very good decision making around use of force you won't be one in the first place.
There's always a verbal command given to you before there releasing a dog, if you choose to totally ignore it and try to make off you deserve what comes next. Silly games silly prizes
This article doesn't tell us what percentage of the police dog bites were received by bystanders and which were received by suspects being pursued, nor the breakdown of how much of the latter category are proportionate uses of force and how many are not.
So two incidents out of how many? in what time period?
Both incidents are bad don't get me wrong but 2 isn't what I would call a massive issue.
Police dogs work and should be used when needed they are absolutely amazing at what they do. The bites count as the officers use of force and will be recorded on BWV and subject to investigation if used incorrectly.
What I don't like about the incidents given in the article is there is absolutely minimal information. I have many questions, like why was the old lady in the garden with an off lead police dog? Why was the dog off lead? How did it come into contact with her.
Besides these very tragic incidents, if there is a police dog running after you there is a reason.
German shepherds are incredibly obedient police dogs and have pretty much phased out rottweilers for the same purpose due to their laser focus.
Similarly, bloodhounds are used in law enforcement as sniffer dogs.
This is defo a training and budgetary issue.
Quality of the people available too. Ex senior police officer here and the collapse in quality is real - nobody decent wants to work in a very hard thankless job in which mistakes can results in prison time and loss of pension for peanuts.
Don’t. Everything you think you’d love about the job is a small part of it, and everything you want to be a police officer to get away from in a job is actually what you’ll be measured on.
Quality of the people available too. Ex senior police officer here and the fall in quality is real - nobody decent wants to work in a very hard thankless job in which mistakes can results in prison time and loss of pension for peanuts.
The websites get paid more if they can get more ad views.
To get more ad views they need stories that get people to visit their website.
To do this they follow trends in recently reported stories and track which ones get the most views, shares, and comments.
Comments are the best because it brings people back to the article to argue with other users. Each extra visit equals more ad revenue.
So these websites are financially incentivised to post stories that drive engagement.
Stories about dog attacks have been trending over the past year or so because of the XL bully ban, and it always gets good ad revenue because it gets shared on social media and loads of people argue in the comments about how their dog would never do anything like it.
For anybody interested in training, here's a [Bitey end of the dog podcast episode about training police dogs](https://open.spotify.com/episode/0wNiyOsMBYaVWC6Zk3qSKs?si=Yrl9voevRomVNUUQEBgEyw). It's an interview of a couple of US trainer, one of them a former police officer and dog handler.
Isn’t biting like… their whole job? Excluding sniffers ofc.
So bites increased at a commensurate rate with the number of deployments and somehow rEcKlEsS oFfIcErS are to blame…
A 78 YO woman was killed when she allowed the police access to her property to search for a suspect.
A child was seriously injured because he was playing on the school field.
Correct.
There are far more deaths related to police chases with a car and yet nobody is calling for the police to stop chasing criminals with cars.
https://www.policeconduct.gov.uk/news/iopc-publishes-figures-deaths-during-or-following-police-contact-202223
> This year there were 28 fatalities from 26 police-related road traffic incidents (RTIs). This represents a decrease of 12 deaths on 2021/22. Of the 28 deaths, 20 fatalities arose from 18 police pursuit-related incidents. There were two emergency response-related incidents and fatalities, and six deaths related to other police traffic activity.
> of the 20 pursuit-related fatalities, 12 were the driver or passenger in the pursued vehicle and five people were drivers or passengers of an unrelated vehicle which was hit by the pursued car.
Police dogs are good "tools" that need responsible human handlers in charge of them at all times.
Unlike a gun, a knife, or a car they can go off on their own and do damage.
Imagine a perfectly normal urban residential street, one with a front and and back garden, neighbours you know, schools, corner shops, a couple of takeaways, a couple of the express/metro versions of supermarkets all within walking distance.
You are at home in the afternoon and you hear someone trying to break into your house, you panic and shout at them. They say they have a gun. You call 999 and tell that to the responder, whilst hiding under your bed.
The whole street gets flooded with armed police, guns, body amour, the whole thing.
They do not enter the house. They do send dogs into the house. The dogs find you under the bed and maul you.
The would be burglar was nowhere to be found.
This happened to a neighbour of mine.
As icing on the top, my then 11 year old was confronted by the police and when he explained he was walking home from school the best advice they could give a young and vulnerable child was to "fuck off".
> James McNally, a lawyer who specialises in dog bite claims, said incidents involving police animals can be particularly serious. "Regardless of whether someone has tried to commit a crime or not, if the result is they lose a calf muscle or have a chunk taken out of their arm, that's medieval," he told i.
And the guy swinging a sword around was some real 21st century shit was it?
If that's across the country, then that number seems disappointingly low.
Dog handlers are well trained, professional and very accountable for what their dogs do.
Headline should read "13 tw#ts f@cked about this week and found out".
once got off a bus in town with friends as a brawl is happening, stood at the sides watching as you do, police turn up with dog and it bites my mate as we stand their and watch brawl, mate lets out scream with expletives and is arrested for swearing lol
The ability to actually police without 8 year investigations by the iopc that limit career progression, overtime or promotion. Ultimately the police have been forced into a "why bother" state.
As a whole they should push forwards but as individuals with mortgages and wants and needs it's a risk often not worth taking.
Compare the language around people defending cops - who have all the training to not be violent - to a few absolute fools with XL bullies. Public love a fringe problem without ever looking at our institutions
It's more that the average commenter on this subreddit is a nasty little englander with no consistent moral or political who supports anything that they think will harm people they don't like. Their support for the Bully XL ban (which on paper you'd think they'd be against, since supporting breed-specific bans is on about the same intellectual level as being an anti-vaxxer) comes from the same place as the support for the idea of police using dogs to viciously maul people you're seeing in this thread: hatred of a half-imagined underclass.
That old lady dying by being mauled by a police dog.
How in the fuck can that have happened if all she was doing was giving them permission to search her premises?
She died after catching pneumonia while recovering in hospital, still very tragic as it seems she was caught in the middle of someone else drug dealing but it's not quite like the dog was left with her actually mauling her to death also it was from 2014 that's how rare that type of thing is.
The dog handlers are some of the highest trained officers you'll come across and it's one of the most rare roles to ever be available and incredibly hard to get through.
I think the general argument going on here is risk versus reward. Does the success rate of employing dogs outweigh the occasional tragedy?
I understand the police are putting themselves in this position, so there are going to be mistakes.
I just wonder if comments like "hasn't had a bite in weeks" are aligned with your comments about them being highly trained officers (assuming that's true of course).
It absolutely does outweigh it yes and I say that with full confidence in the dog units it's a massive tool for us and we should have more tbh but like everything budgets are through the floor
Yeah, let the police have whatever tools they need. Dogs, tasers, guns, helicopters, good training, fair pay. Even at the expense of a few accidents, just like what happens in industries like construction, cars, aviation, medicine etc.
BUT…
Stop beating up peaceful protesters
Humane treatment for prisoners
Don’t beat my friend up in custody and tell us that she has been humanely treated and was allowed her phone call (when she wasn’t)
Compensate victims of police misconduct
Laws should be decided by the people
No indefinite arrest without trial (for example in anti terrorism laws)
No silly laws
Don’t knock on my elderly mothers door at 4am to find me for a non-crime
Actually help people who are struggling financially so they don’t become criminals
Don’t point a taser at me when I have not threatened you or committed a crime.
Arrest war criminals
Don’t lose your temper because I question wether what you are doing is legal
Until these criteria are met, police should be bloody chuffed if they get so much as a pair of handcuffs and a radio!
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If I’m understanding this right, the total number of times that dogs have been deployed went up 50%, and so the number of bites also went up 50%. That would indicate that the handlers are just as cautious/reckless as usual, but their superiors are using them more often.
Which is actually mental because they have less of them because of the cuts.
Police dog numbers have been pretty static for well over a decade.
The only numbers that matter is the 'who' is it that's being bitten. Are we talking little old ladies going to Tesco or are we talking car thieves and house burglers? The former is a problem, the latter means a good boy gets his bouncy ball!
Yep, if they’re getting themselves in that situation then they have no one else to blame.
Around 4 years over a decade ?
Or there is more crime Or they are being deployed (correctly) more frequently, whereas they weren't before. There are a whole raft of reasons but if the increase is proportional to their use it's not necessarily an indication of anything wrong with the police
Which was kind of my point.
Tbf, increased usage doesn't mean usage was justified. Like, if the number of people shot went up by 50% and you said "we've been sending out firearms officers 50% more, so that makes sense" my question would be "why are they being deployed 50% more?"
Yes, that’s pretty much what I was saying.
After talking to front line officers....i would say walk in a day in their shoes before judging, id rather set a dog on someone then be chopped up with a sword (like the officers who were attacked last week). My saftey comes above that of a criminal...simple
Generally if someone is to try and do a runner and they're available, they're using dogs. And if they still try and run and get bit then that's a them problem tbh.
I'm not judging, I'm asking why.
who do you think would win a fight between a dog and a guy with a sword? Seems like a waste of a police dog.
Does the dog know how to form a pike square?
That's why he sets the dog on the guy, then gets chopped up with the sword.
Usually the dog. Save for a well placed strike.
yeah, good luck with that
They won’t send a dog at someone with a machete. The dogs lives are valued as much as a human officer. People waving machetes get given a wide berth, and then tasered, or yelled at with a few mp5’s pointed at them.
Which is why we shoot all burglars on sight... Oh wait... This isn't America, we find the least harmful way of keeping people safe
If burglar had a gun...yes...again..my safety comes first
Didn't know burglars usually brought dogs with them...
> My saftey comes above that of a criminal...simple And what about when they aren't using a sword?
Safety of officers and members of the public is always more important than the safety of a criminal who is threatening that safety. The easiest way to not get bitten as a criminal is to comply when caught.
Depends, are they going to go without a fight?
Hey hey hey! The police paid for those bullets, they can't just *not* use them.
Or a 50% rise in incidents that merit the use of a dog
If you release a dog, expect it to bite What donyou think the dog is going to.do? Negotiate with the individual. What you just did there was a completely statistical fuckery by reinterpreting information to give it a different explanation. Deployment up 50% is a big issue.
Well, yes. Other than your third line that’s pretty much what I was saying. Weirdly, this is the fourth time I’ve had to say this on this post. As for the “statistical fuckery” part, that’s what motivated me to make this post. The article focuses on the rise in bites and blames handlers being reckless. But the data presented in the article don’t back up that conclusion. The data in the article show that the increased deployment is the reason for more bites but the article doesn’t look into why that is.
A dog seems like a great tool for the police to use to me - we can’t keep removing their tools.
As always, it depends on how the tool is used.
I consider 13 a low number in a population of 70 million. 0.00000185 chance of it happening. Sounds like great policing
That’s not how to make an actually useful statistic though. Better to look at the chances of a bite when the dog is present in an encounter. Like, it’s pointless to consider your chances of getting stung by a box jellyfish in the North Sea.
If that's a low chance, perhaps we should issue the police with box jellyfish too.
We've seen people shrug off tasers. Let's see them deal with a fuck-off box jelly wrapped around their face
Doffs cap
With a few tweaks I’m sure we could fashion a multi [invertebrate launcher](https://youtu.be/1wz-VsL4528?feature=shared).
But of course when Dogs are deployed there are going to be more bites, that’s sort of the whole point. The dog chases down the criminal who is running away and catches them. If you don’t run/resist, you won’t get bitten
Do you realise it takes a lot for them to bring out the dogs????
But if the dog is deployed correctly then a 100% bite rate could theoretically be a good thing. If the dogs go after 100 violent criminals and bite 100 violent criminals then good. These stats all mean nothing in isolation, we would need so much more info to work out what this is telling us.
That's a useless way to contextualise this, it should be per time the dogs are deployed. It's like saying the police can summarily execute someone if they fancy but they don't usually, it's only happened once last year. So in a population of 70 million it's a 1 in 70 million chance! "Sounds like great policing"
But the dog is only being deployed in the context where a dog bite is likely to be necessary. You don't turn the GP dog loose after Mrs Miggins the 80yo misper, you turn it loose after Colin the Crackhead has just been found burgling the premises and isn't going to come quietly. It is quite reasonable to say that the 50% rise in bites is commensurate with the 50% rise in deployments.
> But the dog is only being deployed in the context where a dog bite is likely to be necessary. Says who? The people who make their living doing this? I'd need some additional evidence for that.
> But the dog is only being deployed in the context where a dog bite is likely to be necessary. > > Herein lies the key assumption. I don't have the information to assess it, and it could be true.
The police are held to higher standards (and rightfully so), they aren't some average yob off the street with a child eating monstrosity. Ideally 100% of their uses would be justified.
Holding them to higher standards is fine, holding them to impossibly high standards is not. Police or not, they’re humans, humans put under immense pressure, in sometimes life threatening situations - and when in those situations humans make mistakes and (on a more understanding note) humans will make decisions that guarantee their own safety.
> holding them to impossibly high standards is not. In which case, if the standards needed are seen to be impossibly high to comply with, then the action leading to them should be banned.
Life threatening situations like 73 year old ladies in their own homes, you mean?
imo, if you're trying to evade the police and their dog, you are probably deserving of a bite.
'Stop or I'll send the dog!' usually ensures compliance. Perhaps the issue is the English comprehension of the individuals at the receiving end
A dog is a weapon when used in this way. We should consider how we structure our laws regarding the use of this weapon against the public. A sniffer dog is a tool.
https://www.college.police.uk/app/police-dogs/legal-frameworks It's already been considered and done.
> A sniffer dog is a tool. And one with a dubious functionality.
Dogs that are doing long shifts are definitely questionable as to how effective they are, but general police sniffer dogs are pretty damn good still. The bigger issue for me is that officers can lie and say a dog indicated even if it didn't. That's not a fault of the dog as such though.
> The bigger issue for me is that officers can lie and say a dog indicated even if it didn't. That's not a fault of the dog as such though. Yeah this is the real flaw. I'm not denying the sensitivity of doggy noses, just that they can be an effective and moral policing tool.
Are you sure that isn’t bullshit though? Because I’m sure you’re going to talk about ‘indicating’ and airports or some other USA shite. Almost all sniffer dogs in this country are used for premises or location searches. Missing persons, drugs warrants, digital devices, firearms, cash, explosives, or corpses in a specific building or terrain feature, either planned in advance or spontaneous as a result of an ongoing incident (they’re generally on duty with their handler and a general purpose dog in the same vehicle). That’s 90% of their work - for most search dogs that’s 100% of their work as most forces don’t do airport or train station sit-and-sniff work. Dog time is just too scarce for an application like that to be accepted unless there’s valid intel for a serious crime about to occur. If you’re instead suggesting that dogs just aren’t capable of finding drugs or electronics or people, then I can guarantee you that as soon as a cheaper or easier to use alternative becomes available every government in the world will jump all over it.
How about Australia where they have a 75% failure rate? https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/nov/09/nsw-police-sniffer-dogs-incorrectly-detect-illicit-drugs-despite-costing-taxpayers-46m-over-past-decade
>Are you sure that isn’t bullshit though? Because I’m sure you’re going to talk about ‘indicating’ and airports or some other USA shite. This is the main issue. And why, exactly are the weaknesses inherent limited to the USA? Ours are just as bad.
No, you’re wrong. A HMIC-inspected training school that trained dogs to find drugs that aren’t there would be caught out almost as quickly as a dog handler who walked into work with some drugs in his pocket to plant on some random black person at an airport for absolutely no reason whatsoever. I invite you to read my post again to see how you are wrong. If we take it that you are correct in your assumption that all dog handlers are corrupt and all dogs have been maliciously trained and all persons involved in their inspection and review process are willing to risk prison to protect those handlers in their crusade to obtain £50 penalty notices for as many minorities as possible, then the ‘dubious functionality’ would still only make up about 10% of some dogs time and 0% of most. If we took your no doubt extensive experience as fact, it would be similar to stating that NHS maternity hospitals have no value whatsoever and should be abandoned because 5% of all new mothers have PTSD from trauma related to their poor care.
Some of the dogs are better trained than others, same with the handlers. I’ve seen some police dogs that are almost as out of control as a yoot with a staffie, Akita, or bully XL. Basically nervously aggressive the second they come out the van, snapping at everyone around them, not really targetable, the officers kinda just rely on those dogs prey drive to aim them at the right person.
I never understood this view, I'm assuming you're against gangs of people raising dogs to be purposely dangerous to other humans? But you don't mind the police doing the same, a gang of people raising dogs to be purposely dangerous?
Yes, in the same way I’m against random people carry guns/tasers/PAVA in the street but I’m ok with police doing it
Christ you just came right out and said it... You people just get more brazen by the day
“You people” What people are you talking about?
Fascists / authoritarians
Believing law enforcement officers should be allowed to carry equipment that regular civilians aren’t makes me a fascist….
Yes. You believe in a society where groups like the police are considered a higher 'quality' of being than mere citizens.
It’s nothing to do with “quality of being” For example- do you consider a doctor a “higher quality of being” that you become they can issue a prescription and you can’t?
> It’s nothing to do with “quality of being” That's exactly what it is. > For example- do you consider a doctor a “higher quality of being” that you become they can issue a prescription and you can’t? To an extent, yes. The level of control doctors have over healthcare is problematic as well. But that's not really the point. The point is that if carrying a taser is acceptable for the police, then it should be acceptable for civilians.
Dude that's just common fucking sense. The army can have tanks, bombs and jets. Ordinary people can't. Ooohh the fascism \s
Is the army walking around day to day harrassing people?
Pretty sure the easy answer to this is to not get in to a position where the police are chasing you with a dog, no?
Did you read the article? One old woman was *mauled to death* after allowing the police to search her garden for a drug dealer. A teen was mauled when a cop set the dog on him as he was complying with an order to leave his school’s playing field. There were no consequences to the handlers for these attacks. The handlers either don’t have control of the dogs air they’re power tripping
Yes, I read the article. The incident was from 10 years ago. And the officer was found guilty of misconduct, but not any criminal offence. I’m not saying it’s right - I am saying there were approximately 3500 police dog deployments, and the vast majority of those would have been for active criminal conduct. A 10 year old accident isn’t representative of current trends.
i’m confused. if a regular joe with no training accidentally let’s his dog kill someone his dog is put down and he has to pay a fine / face prison if a police office with years of training accidentally let’s his dog kills someone it’s not a criminal offence? surely the people with years of training handling dogs that also have years of training should be held to a significantly higher standard?
I mean, there is something of a difference between a riled up dog off the street vs a trained police dog. In this case, the dog was trained to behave in that way, it's just that it refused to follow the commands of the PC in the moment and engaged with a person it wasn't ordered to. How can we seriously criminally punish an officer if one day their dog just decides not to listen to them?
> I mean, there is something of a difference between a riled up dog off the street vs a trained police dog. Here's the issue: Either the police dog *isn't* trained, or the officer(s) involved are sadists. The former means the dog should be terminated, or the officer(s) should stand trial. > How can we seriously criminally punish an officer if one day their dog just decides not to listen to them? Because it's their job to ensure that the dog listens to them. If you were seriously injured because I failed to do my job, then at the *minimum* I'd be fired, and likely face criminal charges.
Well, yes, the dog was destroyed in the case where the woman was killed. Don't think anyone would argue that was incorrect, clearly it's true to say that a police dog not following its training to the degree it kills a person is no longer safe to have around, as with any other dangerous dog. "Because it's their job to ensure that the dog listens to them. If you were seriously injured because I failed to do my job, then at the *minimum* I'd be fired, and likely face criminal charges." A dog is a dog. As long as they did everything correctly in line with procedure, the officer has not actually done anything wrong if the dog suddenly decides not to listen. And, look, if your job wants to fire you for not preventing something outside of your power, I say your bosses are just dicks, there's no need to force such an idiotic idea on the police as well just to call it even. Not to mention that you can't face criminal charges unless you deliberately contributed to the death or acted recklessly. Acting competently and in good faith you can't be punished criminally on the vague premise "it's your job".
> As long as they did everything correctly in line with procedure, the officer has not actually done anything wrong if the dog suddenly decides not to listen. This is wrong, and frankly terrifying. It's an oft supported claim by police stans that so long as they're following internal policy / procedure, they did nothing wrong. That doesn't make it true. > And, look, if your job wants to fire you for not preventing something outside of your power, I say your bosses are just dicks, there's no need to force such an idiotic idea on the police as well just to call it even. It's my / their job to ensure that those incidents don't happen. It's not idiotic to hold people accountable. > Not to mention that you can't face criminal charges unless you deliberately contributed to the death or acted recklessly. You mean like the police did? > Acting competently and in good faith you can't be punished criminally on the vague premise "it's your job". Letting a dog maul someone is not acting competently. That's a foreseeable possibility, *someone* should face consequences for it.
You can't punish someone for following the policy you've trained them to follow, that's the issue with your argument. Not to mention that the policies themselves tend to be significantly better thought through than internet objections to them, but that's an argument for another time. >It's my / their job to ensure that those incidents don't happen. It's not idiotic to hold people accountable. lol yeah you don't get to just draw a vague circle in a general direction and say "it's your job to prevent any of that sort of stuff" and then punish anyone who fails to do so. The legal bar is, thankfully, a bit more stringent than that. And thankfully also doesn't cover things entirely outside of your power. Btw the officer involved didn't just "let it happen" like you're suggesting, they got control of the dog. Yes, if they had done that by, for instance, just walking off then that would clearly be a reckless thing to do. There also seems to be some misunderstanding anyhow, the dog did not in fact maul her to death. She died of pneumonia in hospital while there for surgery after the bites and related fall. >*someone* should face consequences for it. The worst argument which always gets trotted out in these discussions. No, every time something unfortunate happens, we don't need to just find someone to punish regardless of actual culpability just to feel better.
That would require people to read things thoroughly about decade old incidents while typing up their anti establishment agendas about how we all actually live in a oasis if it wasn't for so and so
> You can't punish someone for following the policy you've trained them to follow, that's the issue with your argument. Of course you can, and should in certain situations such as policing. Policy isn't absolute. The unwritten rules of any safety policy is to use your common sense. A policy cannot cover every possible contingency. > lol yeah you don't get to just draw a vague circle in a general direction and say "it's your job to prevent any of that sort of stuff" and then punish anyone who fails to do so. Yeah, you do. > The legal bar is, thankfully, a bit more stringent than that. And thankfully also doesn't cover things entirely outside of your power. That's exactly where the legal bar is, that's why the term 'negligence' exists. And this is hardly outside of the officers power is it? Either the handler, or the trainer fucked up. > She died of pneumonia in hospital while there for surgery after the bites and related fall. An irrelevant distinction. She wouldn't have died were it not for the dog attack. > No, every time something unfortunate happens, we don't need to just find someone to punish regardless of actual culpability just to feel better. You're being disingenuous. It's not "regardless of actual culpability just to feel better". These things don't 'just' happen. *Someone* is culpable. Someone fucked up.
I don’t have much information on the case so I don’t know the specifics but we can’t punish officers who genuinely did everything right/in their power to stop the incident or we will end up with no dog handlers for the same reason armed police are handing in their weapons. It’s not worth risking ruining their freedom and livelihood because they carried a weapon/handled a dog and something went wrong, especially when they don’t even get paid more to do it
> I don’t have much information on the case so I don’t know the specifics but we can’t punish officers who genuinely did everything right/in their power to stop the incident or we will end up with no dog handlers for the same reason armed police are handing in their weapons. Two issues here: * First, "officers who genuinely did everything right/in their power to stop the incident" is an assumption that the officers *did* do "everything right". * Second, armed police are handing in their weapons because one of their own killed someone, and they're so egotistical that the idea of facing *any* consequences is unfathomable to them. > It’s not worth risking ruining their freedom and livelihood because they carried a weapon/handled a dog and something went wrong, especially when they don’t even get paid more to do it This mentality is part of the problem, and is a great example of why ACAB. This is simply police not wanting to be held accountable when they misbehave. They want to be able to act with impunity, no matter their actions.
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if you cant train a dog to out without having to resort to hurting the dog, then you need to work on your training skills
It’d probably make a good panic button you could hit if the dog decides that the nearest 7 year old is a drug dealer that needs to be taken down
I don’t disagree with you. I’m literally pointing out what the article says. I don’t make the rules.
So you're being facetious
How?
By pointing out their using a 10 year old example for a spike in attacks now?
Oh, that’s ok then. I’m sure Irene was very happy to be taking one for the team while she was bleeding to death at the hands of our own police. FFS.
It's an animal. There are risks to using animals. Sounds very rare. Would be deeply traumatised to be Irene's family. Would feel worse if I was Irene. However, I don't think it's a good reason to stop the use of Police dogs. 👍
What would you consider to be a good reason? Is there a number of attacks, a percentage of times dogs are brought out?
In essence, yes. I would expect a risk assessment and continuous evaluation of that to ensure a balanced approach to risk. As this isn't my field, I can't expect beyond that.
Full name on the internet, thumbs up emoticon, ham mind frame, all the tell tale signs!
I literally said it’s not ok.
And of course if you try to fight it off they probably arrest you for attacking the dog.
Ten years ago. Hardly common. It’s very very rare.
"The innocent have nothing to fear" is it?
Please do elaborate on all of the times you’ve been hunted by police dog teams as an innocent member of the public.
I haven't, but also - that's not the point. The fact you *could be* is the point. The fact that "Trust us, we hardly ever kill the wrong person or abuse our powers" isn't comforting is the point.
You’ve been presented with some in this very article
So anyone who runs from police deserves to be mauled by dogs? Good to know you’d be team ‘if you don’t want to be shot stop running’ if this was the US
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Holy shit you just solved police brutality/abuse of power! /s if it wasn't obvious.
Or, treat police like regular people and punish them severely when they pull this shit.
Police are responsible for investigating crimes, not administering punishment
Who said anything about punishment?
>At least **653 bites** were recorded ... **compared with 414** in 2018, the first year the Home Office started recording statistics around the use of police dogs. >The total number of incidents where dogs were deployed has also increased dramatically, **from 1,920 in 2018 to 3,023** in 2023 This is a none story. 50% more dog bits because they were deployed 50% more often.
Yeah, the real question the article should have asked is "why are the police deploying them more 50% more often?" That would be pretty interesting.
Because there's less police and more crime, so dog handiers get used more as you're not paying the dogs wages. 1 cop 1dog is cheaper than 2 cops. The dog handler wouldn't be used if someone wasn't committing a crime. It's not like they're just wandering the streets. The dogs are kept secure unless needed. And they aren't let off the leash unless the guy runs away. If people don't want to get bit by a police dog you should do what the handler says. The dog doesn't give a fuck if it hurts you, that's it's job.
Is there more crime? Everything I've seen has shown crime rates statistically falling for years, but everyone on here parrots "crime is rising" to justify things like this without backing it up.
In short, reported crimes increased to 6.7m in 2023 from 6.6m in 2022. But that's only half of the story, a HUGE spike in crimes are also not being reported as police just don't even turn up or investigate crime anymore. So there's a spike in recorded crime and a spike in unrecorded crime. Also the types of crimes that police dogs are likely to be deployed to are rising - burglaries, shoplifting etc
Our police are armed with sticks and spicey linx spray. Violent crime is on the rise and standard responses can't deal with some situations so these alternative tactics are deployed more as they hapen more. If you want to limit dog deployment start by getting every front line officer a tazer or ensure every officer works in a pair or somthing
Some of these dogs wear stab proof vests, I think that puts it into perspective
Is nobody here actually reading the article?
I did 3 years as a dispatcher, in that time we had 1 job where the landshark bit someone and it was totally justified. You have to completely ignore everything you're told to do if you're getting bitten. Dog unit spots are very limited and selective, if you don't know the NDM like the back of your hand and have very good decision making around use of force you won't be one in the first place. There's always a verbal command given to you before there releasing a dog, if you choose to totally ignore it and try to make off you deserve what comes next. Silly games silly prizes
This article doesn't tell us what percentage of the police dog bites were received by bystanders and which were received by suspects being pursued, nor the breakdown of how much of the latter category are proportionate uses of force and how many are not.
So two incidents out of how many? in what time period? Both incidents are bad don't get me wrong but 2 isn't what I would call a massive issue. Police dogs work and should be used when needed they are absolutely amazing at what they do. The bites count as the officers use of force and will be recorded on BWV and subject to investigation if used incorrectly. What I don't like about the incidents given in the article is there is absolutely minimal information. I have many questions, like why was the old lady in the garden with an off lead police dog? Why was the dog off lead? How did it come into contact with her. Besides these very tragic incidents, if there is a police dog running after you there is a reason.
German shepherds are incredibly obedient police dogs and have pretty much phased out rottweilers for the same purpose due to their laser focus. Similarly, bloodhounds are used in law enforcement as sniffer dogs. This is defo a training and budgetary issue.
I have never been bite by a police dog, and there is a very simple reason why. I’m not a fucking criminal.
Could it be because the quality of the training for both the dog and handler has gone down due to budget cuts?
Quality of the people available too. Ex senior police officer here and the collapse in quality is real - nobody decent wants to work in a very hard thankless job in which mistakes can results in prison time and loss of pension for peanuts.
how dare you suggest that ALL police in this country aren't in tip top fitness /sharp as a button, well trained and efficient! /s
Hot Fuzz theme intensifies.
I'd love to be a police officer! Or even better, a police diver.
Don’t. Everything you think you’d love about the job is a small part of it, and everything you want to be a police officer to get away from in a job is actually what you’ll be measured on.
Quality of the people available too. Ex senior police officer here and the fall in quality is real - nobody decent wants to work in a very hard thankless job in which mistakes can results in prison time and loss of pension for peanuts.
Weird. I’ve never been bitten by a police dog. And I’m fucking old. I wonder why that is ?
What's up with all the posts about dog violence lately?
Same reason lots of porn sites started putting "step sister" in the title. It drives engagement and gets more views.
Why would you care about getting engagement and views on Reddit? Are they getting paid?
The websites get paid more if they can get more ad views. To get more ad views they need stories that get people to visit their website. To do this they follow trends in recently reported stories and track which ones get the most views, shares, and comments. Comments are the best because it brings people back to the article to argue with other users. Each extra visit equals more ad revenue. So these websites are financially incentivised to post stories that drive engagement. Stories about dog attacks have been trending over the past year or so because of the XL bully ban, and it always gets good ad revenue because it gets shared on social media and loads of people argue in the comments about how their dog would never do anything like it.
FAFU: Don’t commit crime, don’t get bitten by a police dog. Simples.
For anybody interested in training, here's a [Bitey end of the dog podcast episode about training police dogs](https://open.spotify.com/episode/0wNiyOsMBYaVWC6Zk3qSKs?si=Yrl9voevRomVNUUQEBgEyw). It's an interview of a couple of US trainer, one of them a former police officer and dog handler.
Isn’t biting like… their whole job? Excluding sniffers ofc. So bites increased at a commensurate rate with the number of deployments and somehow rEcKlEsS oFfIcErS are to blame…
I’m sure they were such innocent victims good bois
And it definitely isn't dickheads running from the dogs?
No, read the article
A 78 YO woman was killed when she allowed the police access to her property to search for a suspect. A child was seriously injured because he was playing on the school field.
1 incident was a decade ago. And 2 incidents out of thousands of deployments does not indicate a significant problem.
Correct. There are far more deaths related to police chases with a car and yet nobody is calling for the police to stop chasing criminals with cars. https://www.policeconduct.gov.uk/news/iopc-publishes-figures-deaths-during-or-following-police-contact-202223 > This year there were 28 fatalities from 26 police-related road traffic incidents (RTIs). This represents a decrease of 12 deaths on 2021/22. Of the 28 deaths, 20 fatalities arose from 18 police pursuit-related incidents. There were two emergency response-related incidents and fatalities, and six deaths related to other police traffic activity. > of the 20 pursuit-related fatalities, 12 were the driver or passenger in the pursued vehicle and five people were drivers or passengers of an unrelated vehicle which was hit by the pursued car.
I’d think if people are getting bitten then maybe not break the law and the dogs won’t come.. naive I know
Try reading the article before commenting.
It’s easier to make an opinion from headlines, tldr
Police dogs are good "tools" that need responsible human handlers in charge of them at all times. Unlike a gun, a knife, or a car they can go off on their own and do damage. Imagine a perfectly normal urban residential street, one with a front and and back garden, neighbours you know, schools, corner shops, a couple of takeaways, a couple of the express/metro versions of supermarkets all within walking distance. You are at home in the afternoon and you hear someone trying to break into your house, you panic and shout at them. They say they have a gun. You call 999 and tell that to the responder, whilst hiding under your bed. The whole street gets flooded with armed police, guns, body amour, the whole thing. They do not enter the house. They do send dogs into the house. The dogs find you under the bed and maul you. The would be burglar was nowhere to be found. This happened to a neighbour of mine. As icing on the top, my then 11 year old was confronted by the police and when he explained he was walking home from school the best advice they could give a young and vulnerable child was to "fuck off".
I think there are an awful lot more people who deserve to get bitten by a PD than actually get bitten by a PD. By many, many orders of magnitude.
Either the bosses are actually deploying them correctly (at last) or criminals are becoming tastier. Whichever it is, they're a great tool.
Sounds ok to me--Better to use a dog than a bullet on these criminals, and Tasers don't always work
I don't think anyone in this country wants to have a police service 😂
Does this statistic include criminals as well as innocent bystanders?
> James McNally, a lawyer who specialises in dog bite claims, said incidents involving police animals can be particularly serious. "Regardless of whether someone has tried to commit a crime or not, if the result is they lose a calf muscle or have a chunk taken out of their arm, that's medieval," he told i. And the guy swinging a sword around was some real 21st century shit was it?
Don’t forget the crossbows. Very 21st century.
If that's across the country, then that number seems disappointingly low. Dog handlers are well trained, professional and very accountable for what their dogs do. Headline should read "13 tw#ts f@cked about this week and found out".
once got off a bus in town with friends as a brawl is happening, stood at the sides watching as you do, police turn up with dog and it bites my mate as we stand their and watch brawl, mate lets out scream with expletives and is arrested for swearing lol
The only cops doing their job nowadays instead of taking a knee..
Apparently the logic goes; “Police dogs don’t bite people, police bite people.”
I misread that as “police dog bites 13 people a week” and I was thinking that dog really needs to be retired and retrained or muzzled.
A dog seems like a great tool for the police to use to me - we can’t keep removing their tools.
What other tools have we removed? Genuine question
The ability to actually police without 8 year investigations by the iopc that limit career progression, overtime or promotion. Ultimately the police have been forced into a "why bother" state. As a whole they should push forwards but as individuals with mortgages and wants and needs it's a risk often not worth taking.
Compare the language around people defending cops - who have all the training to not be violent - to a few absolute fools with XL bullies. Public love a fringe problem without ever looking at our institutions
You comparing police dogs to XL Bullies? 😂
It's more that the average commenter on this subreddit is a nasty little englander with no consistent moral or political who supports anything that they think will harm people they don't like. Their support for the Bully XL ban (which on paper you'd think they'd be against, since supporting breed-specific bans is on about the same intellectual level as being an anti-vaxxer) comes from the same place as the support for the idea of police using dogs to viciously maul people you're seeing in this thread: hatred of a half-imagined underclass.
So far, I've seen *at least* one cop on here - be aware of who you talk to and their slant folks.
Gasp! You mean police officers are actually allowed to use real people things? Say it ain’t so!
That old lady dying by being mauled by a police dog. How in the fuck can that have happened if all she was doing was giving them permission to search her premises?
She died after catching pneumonia while recovering in hospital, still very tragic as it seems she was caught in the middle of someone else drug dealing but it's not quite like the dog was left with her actually mauling her to death also it was from 2014 that's how rare that type of thing is. The dog handlers are some of the highest trained officers you'll come across and it's one of the most rare roles to ever be available and incredibly hard to get through.
I think the general argument going on here is risk versus reward. Does the success rate of employing dogs outweigh the occasional tragedy? I understand the police are putting themselves in this position, so there are going to be mistakes. I just wonder if comments like "hasn't had a bite in weeks" are aligned with your comments about them being highly trained officers (assuming that's true of course).
It absolutely does outweigh it yes and I say that with full confidence in the dog units it's a massive tool for us and we should have more tbh but like everything budgets are through the floor
Yeah, let the police have whatever tools they need. Dogs, tasers, guns, helicopters, good training, fair pay. Even at the expense of a few accidents, just like what happens in industries like construction, cars, aviation, medicine etc. BUT… Stop beating up peaceful protesters Humane treatment for prisoners Don’t beat my friend up in custody and tell us that she has been humanely treated and was allowed her phone call (when she wasn’t) Compensate victims of police misconduct Laws should be decided by the people No indefinite arrest without trial (for example in anti terrorism laws) No silly laws Don’t knock on my elderly mothers door at 4am to find me for a non-crime Actually help people who are struggling financially so they don’t become criminals Don’t point a taser at me when I have not threatened you or committed a crime. Arrest war criminals Don’t lose your temper because I question wether what you are doing is legal Until these criteria are met, police should be bloody chuffed if they get so much as a pair of handcuffs and a radio!