Jack Booted Thugs

Photo: Sean Kendall

Meet Geist

He was home alone in his backyard when Salt Lake City police came in and shot him in the head.

A Salt Lake City family called police to report that their three year old was missing.  Police proceeded to conduct a house to house search, knocked on the door of Sean Kendall's house and when no one answered, entered the private, gated, backyard without a warrant. When the dog exited his kennel the officer felt threatened and shot the dog.

Now in my opinion the police officer was not in hot-pursuit, and a mere missing child does not qualify as exigent circumstance.  In order for exigent circumstances to apply the officer would have had to have some reason to believe the child was present, which is unlikely since he was found asleep in his home.

The Police are there to help?

I grew up around police officers, went to barbeques, worked on cars, went fishing with them, even worked for a retired police officer for a time.   Now there are two possibilities, either I was extremely naive, or the police have changed a lot,  I think the latter is the case.

I even have a few friends who are cops, but the advice I give friends and family now is have nothing to do with them without a lawyer present.  Some kids in my neighborhood had broken into a house and the deputy sheriffs were apparently looking for where they stashed the loot.  They asked kindly if they could look in my barn, I declined.  I offered to look myself and let them know if I found anything, they declined.  I never would have dreamed of doing that twenty-five years ago, but times change, and if you ask me law enforcement has changed.

What do you think of this? Was the cop justified? How do you feel about law enforcement today?

Deseret News

Salt Lake Tribune

If you ask me, they're public servants and they need to be reminded who's master.