“Coffee County Sheriff Doyle Wooten confirmed late Thursday night that a 10-year-old boy was shot while investigators stormed the scene where they said the suspect in a shooting traveled to,” walb.com reports. Ending a sentence with a preposition? Up with that we should not put! Anyway, translation: a Georgia deputy shot a 10-year-old boy while trying to apprehend a suspect in a police shooting – which always pisses cops off (oops!). And here’s the kicker . . .
The family who lives on the property said their 10-year-old son was shot in the back of the knee. Sheriff Wooten later confirmed that the boy, identified by the family as Dakota Corbitt, had been shot by one of the deputies at the scene.
The bullet entered from the back of the knee and exited out of the front of the child’s leg. He was initially taken to Coffee Regional Medical Center for treatment, but was later sent to Savannah Memorial Hospital for surgery.
But the situation of how the child was shot remains somewhat unclear.
Sheriff Wooten said a deputy, who was not named, was on approaching the property when a dog ran up to him. The deputy’s gun fired one shot, missing the dog and hitting the child. It was not immediately clear if the gun was actively fired by the deputy.
Actively fired? As opposed to what, passively fired? Negligently discharged? Let’s go with that, as the bullet missed its target and may have permanently disabled a young boy. About that target . . .
Police should receive canine management as a standard part of their training. How to tell if a dog is aggressive, how to calm aggressive dogs, how to stop an aggressive dog from attacking using non-lethal methods (e.g., pepper spray), how to shoot a dog (if needs be) and how to handle dog owners in the unfortunate event that their dog has been killed.
[h/t DC]