Rob wrote:
I live several miles north of Stellar. The other day I came home from
work at about 5:30 PM to find two squad cars parked in front of my
home. No cops so be seen, so I assumed they had some business with my
next-door neighbor to the East (he's had some "issues"). My neighbor
to the West was on an out-of-town trip and had asked me to water some
plants, so I went over there with my friendly lab-dog Buddy in trail.
Coming out of the neighbor's place, I turned around to lock the door
and the dog got a few steps ahead of me and around the corner.
Suddenly I heard a loud shout "GET DOWN! GET DOWN! GET DOWN!" and the
dog came trotting back around the corner toward me. I took a peak
around the corner and a cop was standing in my neighbor's yard with
his weapon drawn. He shouted "I ALMOST SHOT YOUR DOG" at me. Now,
this dog is the kindest soul you'll ever meet. Admittedly, he wasn't
on a leash, but he's verbally confined to the front yard and he knows
it, and he's no threat to anyone. At that point, the incident was
over, so I just sort of make a wisecrack to the dog to the effect of
"you almost got shot, you little punk". Cop didn't like that one. As
we walked past him across my neighbor's lawn toward my driveway, he
was getting back into his car. I guess he had a second thought,
because he got back out of his car and shouted at me "SIR, WE HAVE A
LEASH LAW HERE.". I asked "even on private property?" and he said
"yup, I'm not going to write you a ticket today, but if I see you
again out here without a leash on the dog I will". I said sorry and
thanks and kept walking toward my front door. At that point the cop
shouted "SIR! GO BACK TO YOUR HOME AND GET YOUR LEASH RIGHT NOW!" I
pointed at my front door and said "That's my home, I was watering some
plants for the neighbor" at which point the cop looked confused, and
looked at his partner who gave him a nod as if to say "OK, come on,
let's go" and they left. Sorry for the long story, but hearing what
happened at Stellar reinforces my feeling about my own incident - that
we have some hot-headed cops here that are jumping to conclusions and
someone is going to get hurt. I suspect this might be a factor too:

There was a time in my life when I went out
of my way to help cops. I have a letter
somewhere from the police chief of a large
city commending me for helping an officer
subdue a drunk and get him into the car.

No more.

There may still be good cops out there, but
my experience over the last few years is that
most of them seem to be driven by ego and
adrenaline.

The safest thing for a law-abiding citizen to
do is avoid contact. If that's not possible,
keep your hands in plain view and, without
sacrificing your own constitutional rights,
conclude your interaction with a cop as quickly
and as peacefully as possible.