An ugly site witnessed in the Northland, and an indifferent reaction from the authorities.

[uberreiniger]

My wife and I have both been working a lot and yesterday was our first and only day off together for a few weeks. So we spent it well and had a good time... Except for the animal abuse.

We had just finished having lunch at a favorite restaurant and while leaving the parking lot we witness a man in the car in front of us seizing a small dog by the

Comments

[shannon_elaine]

because Kansas City sees animals as "property". Not anything to be respected or concerned with. Of course, I bet if you'd said you saw a pit bull attack someone five million people would have responded.

[ragnorokt]

Most of the world sees animals as property because they ARE property. It does not follow that they should be abused or mistreated; they are either owned by someone or they are feral.

[shannon_elaine]

My animals are not "property". They are members of our family. Sadly though, the government doesn't care how an animal is being treated.

[uberreiniger]

Frankly they'd be lucky to be regarded as highly as property. The authorities might give a damn then.

[saffronhare]

I wonder if what you saw was an ill-advised use of the "alpha roll," which used to be in the spectrum of behavioral training. I'm not saying it was warranted or wise, but that sort of intervention (properly employed) has its place on the bell curve and may not constitute abuse in all instances.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpha_roll

[uberreiniger]

Lifting a dog in the air by the throat and then hurling it over your shoulder is not an alpha roll.

[xopiateslavex]

That's horrible and sad. :(

[uberreiniger]

So they can't go to the address where it's happening, only to the address of the perpetrator? Well I guess that answers all my questions. They don't take animal abuse seriously in KC at all.

[uberreiniger]

That's exactly what the experience I had. Couldn't do anything with the license plate, needed the address. Like you can't find that from a plate in five seconds.

[cherijean]

Meanwhile, I recently saw a woman violently grab her (child's) long hair at the grocery and yank her backwards, while verbally abusing her. Another woman saw them elsewhere in the store and came up to the front as well.

The grocery store security guard was no help. "I'm not a civil servant," states the manager, whom the "security" guard called because that was his chosen course of action. "I don't wanna get involved... We see that all the time..." WTF.

By the time we waited for their dumbasses to stand around doing nothing, and called the cops on our own, they had left.

[uberreiniger]

As a long-time security guard I can attest that the guard was following his instructions for such a situation exactly as prescribed.

[cherijean]

Well, that's just dumb.
If something urgent and dangerous is happening, the best they can do is to go have the manager paged, who then takes his time up to the front (meanwhile stopping to face product...), to see what is going on? Whats the point of even having a security guard? A glorified witness? The least he could have done was tell us up front that all he was gonna do was get the manager, and that if we wanted help we should call the cops on our own immediately- instead of wasting all that time.

[uberreiniger]

People hire security guards to serve as a deterrent, nothing more, and for insurance purposes. A security guard who attempts to act in any capacity that a law enforcement officer would normally act can be arrested for impersonating a police officer. HOWEVER, that being said, if a person is under threat of harm a security officer has the same legal power as any citizen to intervene.