Ottawa Police Use Guns to Kill Animals

Cops Use Guns to Kill Animals
By Jon Willing
Ottawa Sun

Ottawa police officers fired their guns 62 times in 2008, 11 more times than the previous year.

Only once last year did an officer fire at a person. It happened at an apartment on Pinecrest Rd. and two people survived being hit by the same bullet.
The Ontario Special Investigations Unit cleared the officer of criminal responsibility.

All other firearm discharges in 2008 were to kill dangerous or injured animals, according to a police use of force report for 2008.

Officers reported 482 incidents in which they used force in 2008, a decrease of about 7% from the previous year.

The number of times police used a Taser, in 2008 more than doubled to 27. Before frontline supervisors received Tasers in November 2007, only the tactical unit carried the weapons. Police used a Taser 12 times in 2007.

There are now 130 frontline supervisors, 34 tactical officers and three professional development instructors trained to use Tasers.

(Maybe we should just put more funding into the Humane Society... I wonder how accurate these statistics are?)-W