Hero Tries To Arrest Dog

…because a Clover called to report it barked at him:

A cop in Arizona was confronted on camera by a law abiding citizen when he attempted to arrest not her but her dog.

The situation sounds utterly farcical, and it is.

The woman in the video, Terri Franklin, explained that when she went to buy groceries, she left her pit bull in the car with the windows ajar. The dog barked at a passer by, who freaked out and called the cops.

Yep, that’s right, a busy body informant called the cops because a dog in a car barked at them.

Instead of diffusing the non-situation, the officer attending the scene attempted to make an example of Franklin.

“Officer Whipple proceeds to demand my driver’s license. I, of course, refuse, as I have done nothing wrong and then ask him if I am under arrest?” wrote Franklin on her Facebook page.

“Am I under arrest?” Franklin is heard asking in the video.

“No, but your dog is,” the cop replies.

The over officious officer then claims that he could take the dog on the grounds of the animal being “a vicious and large dog.”

“She’s not vicious, and she’s not that large.” Franklin points out.

The cop attempts to explain that he is “scared” of the dog, but Franklin notes that the animal had not even stepped out of the vehicle, let alone attacked anyone.

Deliberating the situation for a few seconds, the officer then simply walked away, clearly aware that there was no legal grounds for arresting a dog in a car.

The officer’s bark is clearly worse than his bite.

It should be noted that only when a camera was turned on the cop did he come to his senses and stop harassing a law abiding citizen.

However, Franklin is lucky that the cop didn’t simply shoot the dog without consideration, as so many others do. It is even being proposed in some states to make it lawful for officers to enter homes and execute dogs.

The Huffington Post reported recently that a new bill in Mississippi proposes that, regardless of whether or not they have a warrant, cops could enter houses if there is a pit bull on the property to shoot and kill the dog if only a handful of conditions are met.

Cops could kill dogs if they are determined to be “not under proper restraint when on the premises of its owner” or if they are not wearing vaccination tags and “attempts to peacefully capture the dog have been made and proven unsuccessful.”

One might argue that there are slightly more pressing matters for police to deal with at the moment than barking dogs.