WHEN POLICE MUST SHOOT ANIMALS

May/June 2012 Cop Talk

In many police departments, particularly the smaller and more peaceful ones, most of the rounds fired in the line of duty involve “humane destruction” of injured or dangerous animals. The rabid skunk reported by a homeowner, the deer lying plaintively in the road with its spine shattered after it ran in front of an automobile, or the snarling dog charging a cop who is serving a warrant.

In the Ayoob Files column in this issue, it discusses the Zanesville, Ohio incident in which the local sheriff’s department had to euthanize 49 exotic animals that had been released upon their community by an angry man just before he blew his own brains out. Some of those officers were hunters — one responded to the scene with his personal Remington 700 in 7mm Magnum — and did good work with it.

However, the cops found no sport in it. I spoke to the Sheriff who ran the sadly necessary containment operation, Matt Lutz, and several of the deputies, and to a man they found it grimly depressing. Not to mention dangerous. There were 35 lions and tigers that had to be accounted for. A male Bengal tiger can reach 580 pounds, and a male African lion averages 400. When I was in lion country in Africa, the professional hunters I was with favored the .458 Magnum with 510-grain softnose bullets. The lawmen that dealt with the Zanesville situation primarily had 55-grain .223 ammo. These cops definitely got their daily adrenaline requirement — but they didn’t get any sport out of it at all.

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