CW: POLICE VIOLENCE, DOGS, GUNS.
The owner according to some reports is a homeless man. They were shot because someone accused the dogs of biting them to the police. The person who called them did not have an injury that required a medical unit. Witnesses say she wasn't bitten, but got her legs caught in the leads. The homeless man was tazed. The homeless man was currently on a ban list for owning dogs. For animal cruelty or as a result of anti-homeless policemen previously taking his dog for anti homeless reasons? I don't know.
Regardless, they sent a unit of about 15 officers, including multiple armed units to go deal with a homeless man and his dogs. Say it's 8 officers, that's 2 armed + 6 unarmed paid for 1 hours work (8), when you could send 1 armed officer (?), and 1 unarmed officer to do a few hours of de escalation work, (8 paid hours if it takes 4 hours by two officers). I feel like with two calm people they easily could've de-escalated the situation to just talk with the man about it first rather than going in as a squad guns blazing. Same hours paid. No gun discharge. No tazing homeless man.
I think it's a little fucked up that most of the reporting and the name of this vigil event on Facebook seems to focus exclusively on the names of the dogs and not Louie Turnbull, the homeless man who got tased.
But then again, a homeless person being brutalized probably wouldn't rally as much support as two dead dogs.
dogs are subhuman animals and so are absolved of moral culpability in the liberal mind
ironically their very inhumanity places them closer to liberal sympathy than the poor, who by virtue of their combined sapience and consequent economic status are judged to be something less than subhuman
really don't understand how prosperity gospel is still able to self-propagate when poors outnumber rich by orders of magnitude
The man is a victim and doesn't deserve the added pressure of having his name in print endlessly. What exactly does putting his name in print achieve?
There is the additional factor here that he is an extremely easy target for the right to make this about. Very difficult to sympathise with, whereas the dogs are EASY to have people sympathise with and generate continued momentum for the issue. Half the country owns and loves our dogs.
There is the additional factor here that he is an extremely easy target for the right to make this about. Very difficult to sympathise with, whereas the dogs are EASY to have people sympathise with and generate continued momentum for the issue. Half the country owns and loves our dogs.
This is exactly my point. It is easier to get people to care about dogs than about homeless people. A large chunk of white people care more about dogs than they do about the unhoused or PoC.
That's fucked up.
If this were a homeless person without a record, without a dog ban, and without several pre-existing videos that don't exactly look great then I think he would be much more sympathisable.
It's not just that he's homeless. It's incredibly easy to get people to have sympathy for the homeless in the UK, exceptionally different conditions in fact. We only have between 3000-4000 rough sleepers nationally because people don't like it and want them helped. This empathy people have for the homeless is a serious force politically and lets us force a lot of social help. It's a damn serious difference to the 500,000+ rough sleepers the US has. It's very important to understand that the UK's "homeless" statistic includes anyone sleeping on someone's sofa or living in non-permanent residence anywhere, such as with a friend, rough sleepers is the term we use for those without a roof at all.
Granted the tories are making the situation worse, but their progress is slow because people by and large do not hate the homeless in the UK. You can not translate the american conditions to the UK. It's not the same.
Holy shit, I never realised how bad America was for homelessness. My old city was one of the UK's homeless capitals so I used to hear about it a lot, but never realised our rough sleeper stats were so relatively low. Now that I think back on it, it was often the same homeless person that roamed an area, I just used to see them a lot so it felt like there were maybe more of them.
They were shot because someone accused the dogs of biting them to the police. The person who called them did not have an injury that required a medical unit. Witnesses say she wasn’t bitten, but got her legs caught in the leads. The homeless man was tazed.
Should go to jail for this. Two dogs are dead. Something similar happened with Neeley. People were calling 911 and claimed that he had a gun or a knife. Cops didn't get to him, but it would have made for a high tension situation that didn't need to be.
Regardless, they sent a unit of about 15 officers, including multiple armed units to go deal with a homeless man and his dogs. Say it’s 8 officers, that’s 2 armed + 6 unarmed paid for 1 hours work (8), when you could send 1 armed officer (?), and 1 unarmed officer to do a few hours of de escalation work, (8 paid hours if it takes 4 hours by two officers). I feel like with two calm people they easily could’ve de-escalated the situation to just talk with the man about it first rather than going in as a squad guns blazing. Same hours paid. No gun discharge. No tazing homeless man.
I take that back. Cops live for creating high tension situations. 15 officers for a single homeless man and two dogs? I've seen this sort of disproportionate response to the homeless a couple times in the States. First time was a few years ago and a squad car and van responded to some complaint about two homeless men that were just sitting around minding their business.
Second time was actually just a week or two ago. 3-4 cops seemed to be harassing a homeless man that I pass by everyday. He's always minding his own business for the most part. He tries to sell some art, but I've never seen him harrassing anyone. Guess someone called the cops on him for drinking in public since they took a bottle from him, but he was pretty calm about it.
Its fucking sad that people go out of their way to cause as much harm as possible to the homeless by calling the cops on them.
