Chief Brown was planning on playing the role of peacekeeper after dinner. Some neighborhood grouch, Mr. Harwood, had been complaining about his neighbor’s dog, Rex, and Chief Brown thought it would be good to mediate before things boiled over. Rex belonged to Encyclopedia’s friend, Pinky Plummer, so he brought his son around. On their way to Harwood’s house, they heard four gunshots. When they got to their destination, they saw Harwood on the sidewalk, holding a gun, and Rex bleeding on the ground.
After doing the typical “please disperse, there’s nothing to see here” routine, Chief Brown went inside to ask Harwood what had happened. As Harwood sat down and opened the cabinet to put the gun away in its carrying case, Harwood told the story of him dozing off in his study and then he waking up to find someone going through his desk. Wanting to stop the would-be robber, he quietly got his gun from the cabinet and told the robber to stop. The robber ran out of the house and Harwood ran after him and shot four times.
You see? He wasn’t shooting at a dog; he was shooting at the robber.
At best, Harwood is someone who shoots irresponsibly at fleeing suspects. Even if there had been someone running away – which has yet to be proven – he’s a horrible shot. He shot a dog out of his own recklessness. What if instead of shooting a dog, he fatally shot an innocent bystander? Manslaughter. Also, I’m not sure if you’re allowed to shoot the suspect in this case. Suspect in your house is one thing. Suspect with no weapon running away something else because it’s no longer self-defense in that case.
But that’s only assuming there was a robber. Was there? Encyclopedia wasn’t buying it. If Harwood was trying to quietly get his gun out of the cabinet, he wouldn’t have put the case back into the cabinet and closed the cabinet case. That means that Harwood shot Rex in cold blood, which makes him a raging asshole. And on top of being an asshole, he’s still a horrible shot. He shot four times, yet Rex lived. That means he probably missed three times.
The worst part of the story is that Harwood wasn’t arrested for any of this. No matter how you cut this story – robber or not – the truth is that a man shot a dog; either on purpose or recklessly. There must be some laws on the book against this, right?
