Asheville police kill dog,
no longer welcome

Editor, Asheville Global Report,

On Friday, May 26, about 9:45 pm, during a truly amazing display of police power, arrogance, and incompetence, an Asheville City policeman shot and killed a young dog on Highland Street.

The dog was killed during what appears to have been a sort of swat team invasion of the house diagonally across the street from ours. Rumor on the street has it — all we have are rumors, since the police obviously felt no need to inform any one of us of anything — that an armed robbery had taken place and that the police were looking for the perpetrator or perpetrators. One of our neighbors told us he had counted twenty Asheville City Police cars on East Chestnut, Highland, and Woodrow streets that Friday night, yet we were given no explanation for their presence, nor were we warned that a potentially dangerous situation existed, even though we walked past two police officers only a moment or two before the shooting.

After most of the police cars had left the street, we continued our walk home and passed by the body of the dog. A young woman sat on the ground beside him, weeping and stroking his head. Until we saw the dead animal, we had been under the impression that the police had shot a different dog, a pit bull kept chained to the porch of the house next to the target house. The third member of our little party, who is also a family member, is a young woman who, in former times and in many cultures, would have been considered to be gifted by God or the gods in a very special way, and considered to be herself a gift. When she saw the dead animal, she immediately exclaimed, “That was a nice dog!” This involuntary and honestly felt statement brought an immediate verbal attack from a beefy and (again, this is our opinion, never to be changed) beefwitted Asheville City Policeman, who snarled; “He was not a nice dog. Not when he’s trying to eat someone up. He brought his destiny on himself.”

We do not believe that the dog was “trying to eat someone up.” We think — and will always think — he was killed by a little boy with a big gun, getting his feeble jollies the only way he knows how. And we think — and will always think — that there can be no reasonable explanation for killing the animal, that any attempt to justify or explain it away is pure hogwash. The pun, incidently, is intentional. On a final note, we address the Asheville City Police Department directly: You came into our neighborhood like an invading army and acted as though the residents were either your enemies or of no consequence whatsoever; you not only failed to warn many of us of the potential for personal danger, but even allowed our party to walk into a potentially volatile area; you mistook a young dog’s excitement for aggression -- a high-spirited young animal who had never presented a threat or offered to attack anyone else, in spite of the fact that literally dozens of people walked by him every day, often engaged in lively conversations or activities as they passed — and you casually murdered him.

We realize that what we have said here will be found to be offensive; this is as intended and, we are convinced, deserved. We also realize that you often respond to criticism by sending an officer in an attempt to smooth things over. You cannot. We do not wish to talk to any of you at any time, certainly do not want you coming to our home, and will refuse to speak with you should you do so. We can no longer trust you, we fear you, and, therefore, you no longer have friends here. We have pets, you see. We prefer that they remain as they are at present; alive, and moving about.

Ann L. Jones and Jerome A. Carpenter Asheville, NC