Police dog suspended for potential racism.

February 4, 2004 12:27 AM

Police dog suspended for potential racism.It seems that for some time now, Dolpho, a police dog in Pennsylvania, has been singling out black children, which, in the eyes of officials is clearly a sign of racism, and they are calling for an end to his active duty -- not to mention an end to his life.
posted by poorhouse (34 comments total)

I agree. The dog clearly should be lunging at and biting all children, regardless of race.
posted by PrinceValium at 12:34 AM on February 4, 2004

Haha! Dogs are crazy! Grrrrrrrrrr. Ruff! Ruff!

In all seriousness, though, one has to wonder how exactly they trained the dog.
posted by The God Complex at 12:41 AM on February 4, 2004

I think this has been done before...
posted by Dagobert at 12:43 AM on February 4, 2004

adolpho ?
posted by sgt.serenity at 12:59 AM on February 4, 2004

I think this has been done before.

That movie was based on a true story.
posted by LeLiLo at 1:07 AM on February 4, 2004

There have been reports of problems with this animal in suspect apprehensions as well; seems like the real culprit here is the handler, not the dog.
posted by Dreama at 1:33 AM on February 4, 2004

Obviously the handler. Dogs react to the signals conscious or not that its owner or handler gives it. If the handler was always nervous or aggressive around young black children, the dog would have picked up on that and reacted accordingly.

The only answer is to put the handler to sleep.
posted by sic at 2:06 AM on February 4, 2004

Well, if the dog is biting any child, it shouldn't be on the force.

Could be that the dog is reacting to unconscious (presumably) signals from the handler, but it could also be that the dog was not exposed to people with dark skin when it was young. I don't know how likely that is in McKee's Rock, Pennsylvania.

This is completely anecdotal, of course, but I have two dogs of the same breed, from the same family. The older dog, who we didn't adopt until she was 2 years old, went through a long period of barking at anyone with even slightly dark skin. My younger dog, who has grown up in my house around several different ethnicities, has never had a problem.
posted by LittleMissCranky at 2:41 AM on February 4, 2004

Exactly, LittleMissCranky. It's a function of what flavors of people dogs are used to. My dog also barks at people of color; coincidentally, or not, people of color often seem afraid of my dog, or at least very apprehensive; this is prior to any acting out on the dog's part.
posted by stupidsexyFlanders at 3:30 AM on February 4, 2004

[sarcasm] Don't these people know that dogs are colorblind? [/sarcasm]

Seriously though, police dogs are treated as tools, but (and for many good reasons) classified as Law Enforcement Officers (read as: people.)

Basically what it comes down to is that this particular tool isn't working correctly, be it the training or the handler, or whatever, it's not likely something to be fixed. My feeling is, take the dog off the force, and put it into an environment where it will be happy.

i don't see how putting it down is necessary.
posted by quin at 4:08 AM on February 4, 2004

was the child in question wearing a postmans uniform.
posted by johnnyboy at 5:00 AM on February 4, 2004

In my experience, dogs are extremely class conscious (which in Latin America amounts to racism). Middle class dogs bark at poor people, poor people´s dogs bark at middle class people, etc.
posted by signal at 5:57 AM on February 4, 2004

I have always been a bit uneasy about dogs as 'tools' used in the apprehension of suspects. The key word is suspects, as in innocent until proven guilty.

It just seems like police brutality to me. Would we accept it if police officers barked, growled and then bit suspects a couple of times? Somehow when the agency is shifted from a police officer to an animal it is okay.

Two unprovoked attacks on children = put the dog down.
posted by srboisvert at 6:34 AM on February 4, 2004

What I like is the two month investigation, undoubtedly at taxpayers' expense, to determine if a DOG is RACIST. You know, I noticed my pet rock is just fixing for a hate crime.

Seriously though, I have seen dogs to be race-conscious. Of course, the issue is whether the dog is dangerous, not whether it is racist.
posted by Krrrlson at 6:39 AM on February 4, 2004

In other news, a number of police weapons, batons and a lynching rope were put back in the cupboard.
posted by vbfg at 6:43 AM on February 4, 2004

about that movie....

moonspinner55
san berdo, ca

Date: 18 January 2001
Summary: Beautiful, tragic, haunting final shot...
Meandering at times, but extremely sensitive little thriller about a white dog(not only in color but in mind, as it is trained to attack African-Americans). Kristy nurses him back to health after hitting him with her car in the road, learning his true nature soon after and dedicating herself to curing the gorgeous, but brainwashed creature. The random scenes of attack(one in slow-motion)are probably what doomed this film's chances at getting a theatrical release(it played Mexico, but only "preview performances" in the US). True, they are upsetting, but deliberately so. They are necessary in showing the reasoning of what happens next, but that certainly doesn't make them any the more pleasant to watch. Kristy has a difficult time getting a grip on her character, and I'm still not quite sure who this young woman is, but the actress's mere presence is reassuring(she's like a lovely ray). Paul Winfield gives his best performance ever as the black man who attempts to retrain the dog, knowing how slim his chances are. Some shots in the movie are repetitive(the music is as well, but I found the passages very melancholy and right for the picture), but the slow motion taxed my patience. However, almost all is redeemed by that final shot. What tragic beauty there is in it, what a loss of innocence for all concerned.
posted by Slagman at 6:52 AM on February 4, 2004

I agree that dogs that bite children should be retired from police duty or euthanized, but come on now! Since when do animals have sufficient intellect to be racist? Perhaps the dog was trained to be more hostile toward black people by the police? Now THAT would be a scandal....
posted by Durwood at 6:57 AM on February 4, 2004

srboisvert - much like human law officers, law enforcement dogs are trained not to use force unless it's necessary. Now, mind you, "necessary" for a dog is what its handler tells him to do, so if you have a brutal cop on one end of the leash, you'll likely have a brutal dog on the other end of the leash.

However, police dog training usually weeds out dogs who bite without a command (also dogs who are predisposed to being aggressive.) Rather than to claw or bite, they're generally trained to knock a suspect down, and to stand on him/her until the human officers can catch up. They're also trained to catch loose clothing to aid bringing a suspect down, while *not* biting anything beneath the clothing.

Again, a dog will only be as effective as its handler, and these are not animals who are raised for people besides the handler to play with, pet, etc., like one would a normal dog, but unless they're told to bite, they're not mauling suspects willy-nilly.
posted by headspace at 6:58 AM on February 4, 2004

My aunt in charleston had a very racist dog. It was incredibly pleasant to anyone white, but if you brought any one with a dark skin over it would flip out. Fit well with my aunts temperament and was a constant embarrassment to me.
posted by sourbrew at 7:36 AM on February 4, 2004

Could be that the dog is reacting to unconscious (presumably) signals from the handler, but it could also be that the dog was not exposed to people with dark skin when it was young.

That's likely exactly what the problem is. It could also be as specific as the dog never having been socialized to dark-skinned children. There's not enough information in the story to make a guess about it, but it's a training issue or human error than rather the dog being "racist", dogs don't care about race specifically, they care about smell, appearance and body language. If they're never socialized to people who smell, look or act in certain ways (like people in wheelchairs or people with cerebral palsy), they're likely to be very suspicious of them. I'm surprised this wasn't identified as a problem and rectified with socialization after the first bite - the ideal socialization window is before 4 months of age, but rehabilitative socialization after that can still be very effective. Calling it "racist" is just sensationalizing.

And headspace is also correct: police dogs are extremely well-trained, and only stable, even-tempered dogs are even considered for the training (bitework is not something any responsible person would do with an unstable or vicious dog, and most police forces have very strict rules about temperament testing long before the dog gets to the bitework stage of the training - they're not going to put the time and money into training a dog that won't make a suitable police dog, and unstable or vicious dogs who bite without provocation, or who can't be controlled, are not suitable candidates).
posted by biscotti at 7:41 AM on February 4, 2004

My dog is "racist" aginst people wearing hats.. even if it's me. It's weird, but, I guess I never really wore hats around him when he was just a pup. But man, he just goes completely nuts around anyone wearing a hat.
posted by maceo at 8:22 AM on February 4, 2004

Obviously the dog must have been molested as a puppy. I hear he's already writing his own screenplay about the experience and has already been booked for an interview with Rosanne Barr. And I can't believe how quickly the American public seems to have moved on after the traumatic Janet Jackson Tit incident!

Seriously: can't anyone in the US discuss race in anything approaching a sane manner?
posted by zaelic at 8:25 AM on February 4, 2004

can't anyone in the US discuss race in anything approaching a sane manner?

That's pretty much what this thread has been, a sane discussion. Until your post, of course.
posted by archimago at 8:30 AM on February 4, 2004

Police dog suspended for potential racism. . . and they are calling for an end to his active duty -- not to mention an end to his life.

Oh for fucksakes.

For even more rational, intelligent treatment of animals, look here.

Or, what sic said:

The only answer is to put the handler to sleep.
posted by Shane at 9:27 AM on February 4, 2004

A few years ago, an old coworker of mine adopted a very sweet, 2 year old lab that had been grossly mistreated by some Alaskan natives (I live in Fairbanks). When the dog was left in the fenced-in yard during the lazy afternoons, the dog would bark like crazy if an Alaskan native walked by on the sidewalk, but would wag its happy tail when any other ethnicity walked by. I had never heard of a racist dog before this one, and I didn't believe it until I saw it.
posted by rhapsodie at 9:42 AM on February 4, 2004

My dog used to be a racist, but she was one of those "oh, I like that guy Chris, he's not like the other ones" kinds of racists. Then we moved to Mexico, and she got over it. Now she's afraid of taco carts.
posted by Ignatius J. Reilly at 10:49 AM on February 4, 2004

Police dogs shouldn't be biting children. End of discussion.

What "ethnic/racial group" category the child's parents check on the census forms isn't relevant to the dog's performance, though it does raise questions about the handler's performance.

I'm now troubled by the thoughts of who will come forward to volunteer to adopt this dog.
posted by Sidhedevil at 11:23 AM on February 4, 2004

Maceo: my dog suffers from the same irrational fear of hats. We've had her since 6 weeks, and she's never had an "encounter" with anyone wearing a hat or any other notable experience.

What breed is your dog? Mine is a Lhasa Apso.
posted by Ynoxas at 11:31 AM on February 4, 2004

Ynoxas: my dog is a shepard / akita mix.
posted by maceo at 11:49 AM on February 4, 2004

My your dogs think that the hat is attacking your heads.
posted by sic at 12:43 PM on February 4, 2004

Dogs may be (hu)man's best friends, but for my money misanthropic dogs are just the wise ones who have finally figured us out ;-)
posted by Shane at 12:56 PM on February 4, 2004

My vet said dogs don't see depth because they are color blind. If a black UPS driver comes to the house - my Labs stay in a room. One dark continuous color and they go nuts because its threatening to them.
posted by Macboy at 1:17 PM on February 4, 2004

But it could also be that the dog was not exposed to people with dark skin when it was young. I don't know how likely that is in McKee's Rock, Pennsylvania.

McKees Rocks. It's a "suburb" of Pittsburgh, immediately adjacent to the city but just outside of its legal limits, but it's a very blue collar, low-income, racially mixed community with a fairly substantial crime rate. If this dog was exposed to the community during its youth and training, it was exposed to black people of all ages. If this dog was exposed only to his current handler and his family, that's a whole other ballgame.

I'm still trying to figure out why McKees Rocks council is investigating the animal. Much ado was made at the time of the first incident about how well the animal did with children; pictures circulated then (and now) of the handling officer's toddler daughter sitting straddle on the dog as if it were a pony. Clearly the dog doesn't have a problem with some children.

But this is an animal with a history of biting a child who was not in any way connected with a police operation and yet someone (his handler) made the decision to take the dog into a school. (To demonstrate how the dog is used to find drugs, btw. You know, under the logic that every middle schooler needs to understand how police dogs are used in drug raids.) Obviously there are a few people in the McKees Rocks PD who don't have their heads on straight.

And at least one member of McKees Rocks council, because she's focusing on the dog and not the cops. And the media and the public are (from all I've seen and heard in editorials/letters to the editor/talk show callers) going along with her. Fear the future, people. We're still bound up in race vs. race to the extent that basic logic can go flying out of the window and people applaud it.

I'm now troubled by the thoughts of who will come forward to volunteer to adopt this dog.

The dog lives with the handling officer and his family. My guess is that if the dog is no longer permitted to be a part of police operations but is not ordered to be destroyed, they will keep him as their family pet, which is what the animal's status seems to be when he isn't working.
posted by Dreama at 1:53 PM on February 4, 2004

My dog is "racist" aginst people wearing hats...-maceo

my dog suffers from the same irrational fear of hats. -Ynoxas

My dog too. Insane about hats.
posted by dejah420 at 9:44 PM on February 4, 2004