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Dog's owner questions shooting
By MARY BURRELL
Article published on Wednesday, Nov. 9, 2005 |
SEMINOLE – The owner of a dog shot by a sheriff’s deputy Oct. 31 questioned the need for deadly force in a situation he said might have been defused with proper training or professional handlers.
Barry Farr said he had put his five rottweilers in his fenced back yard the morning of Oct. 31. Unknown to him, he said, they loosened two planks in the 6-foot wooden fence and got out of the yard.
Farr did not see what happened after that. Pinellas County Sheriff’s spokesman Mac McMullen said the dogs were reported to be chasing children to the bus stop.
Farr said he believed that if the dogs saw children, they would follow them.
Police said that Deputy Bradley Webster responded to a call about the dogs, and he found them in the front yard, at 9322 83rd St., which is Farr’s house. Farr said that his dogs may have been protective of his yard.
Police said other deputies arrived and the dogs circled the yard, lunging at deputies. When one of the dogs lunged at Webster, he fired twice, killing the dog.
Farr said his cousin called to him in the house. When he came outside, one of his dogs was lying on the ground, dying. There was one deputy there, he said, who said, “Sorry, sir, I had to shoot your dog.”
“That’s when I went crazy,” said Farr. “I had to watch my dog’s last breath. Everyone’s talking like it’s my fault.”
He questioned the use of deadly force in a neighborhood with children. He questioned why the deputy didn’t get in his car if he felt threatened and why he didn’t call the county Animal Services for assistance.
And, he refuted the deputy’s description of his dog, saying she was smaller than 90 pounds, more like 70, she was 11 months old, and did not have an aggressive personality.
And he wanted people to know her name was Cocoa.
After Farr restrained his other dogs that morning, police cited him for harboring a public nuisance and for dog license violations.
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Article published on Wednesday, Nov. 9, 2005
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