Letters

Thu., June 14, 2007

The Spokesman-Review

Justice due in dog shooting

On May 26, my dog was shot on our property.

We woke up to hearing a gunshot, ran down to the driveway and found him lying there dead.

My boyfriend drove up the road, stopped a man in his truck and asked him if he had shot our dog. The man said no – he was looking for deer. The man had turned his truck around and was coming back down the road that our property is on.

We think he was coming back to kill our other dog. He said he was looking for deer, but who looks for deer at 9 or 10 in the morning?

Usually, you look for them early in the morning or just before dark. Besides, hunting season doesn’t open for a few more months.

This man ended up calling the Sheriff’s Office, saying he was scared for his life. So, four deputies came onto our property; two of them had AR-15s. They told us that the dog being shot was our own fault and that they didn’t want any retaliation.

The man said the two dogs had attacked a horse, and that is why he had shot one of them. When we asked if we could go see the horse’s injuries, the deputies said the horse did not have any marks on him.

If two dogs got a horse down on the ground, there would be marks. That was the end of that.

It is illegal to shoot dogs on their own land. We looked up all the laws on the Washington Legislature’s Web site. Why did this man not get into any trouble for shooting a part of our family?

It also is illegal to shoot from your vehicle (we heard him drive away), to have a loaded gun in your vehicle and to shoot across a road. I took hunter’s safety classes, and that is what they teach you.

If they are going to make you learn all these laws to pass a hunter’s ed class, why are they not enforcing the laws?

Where the man shot the dog, you cannot see back into the woods, where we all were. There were about 40 people back in the woods, many of them children.

What if he had shot one of us?

This man had no right to make any of the decisions he made on this day. Why is there no justice?

My 7-year-old daughter wants to know why the man who killed her Hossie did not get into any trouble. We try to teach kids that the police are here to help us, but why?

Laws are made for us to obey, so why is nothing being done?

I have a lot more that I could say. I am just hoping that someone will listen and maybe put something in the paper and help us out.

Danielle Link

Spokane

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