The dead dog

OK, so just how important is it that an innocent bystander's pit bull was shot by police on Sunday as police looked for the suspect in the shooting of a Mercer County sheriff's officer?

Extremely important, of course, to Linda Milbourne and her family, the dog's owners.

Not so important, perhaps, to readers and journalists whose immediate reaction is, A COP WAS SHOT! Of course his colleagues are going to swarm the area and find this dangerous, anarchist punk as quickly as possible, to protect the public, their co-workers and themselves from further harm.

If a pit bull jumps out at an on-edge police officer in that situation, it's not shocking that something like this could happen.

So why does it continue to be a story followed in the pages of The Trentonian?

For one thing, a dog, apparently, was shot by police. Yet the spokesman for the Trenton Police Department told the newspaper that no incident report was ever filed about it, something that's supposed to happen anytime a cop shoots a gun outside of target practice.

That's just the start of the questions about this incident. At no point, and in no way, though, should it detract from the real issue of the past few days -- the fact that one of our bravest public servants, an unarmed hero cop trying to help a woman in distress -- was shot close range and is lucky to be alive.

The most important things are wishing him a speedy recovery, getting swift justice for the person responsible, and coming up with solutions that will have us writing about less of this kind of thing in the Trenton area.

The dead dog

OK, so just how important is it that an innocent bystander's pit bull was shot by police on Sunday as police looked for the suspect in the shooting of a Mercer County sheriff's officer?

Extremely important, of course, to Linda Milbourne and her family, the dog's owners.

Not so important, perhaps, to readers and journalists whose immediate reaction is, A COP WAS SHOT! Of course his colleagues are going to swarm the area and find this dangerous, anarchist punk as quickly as possible, to protect the public, their co-workers and themselves from further harm.

If a pit bull jumps out at an on-edge police officer in that situation, it's not shocking that something like this could happen.

So why does it continue to be a story followed in the pages of The Trentonian?

For one thing, a dog, apparently, was shot by police. Yet the spokesman for the Trenton Police Department told the newspaper that no incident report was ever filed about it, something that's supposed to happen anytime a cop shoots a gun outside of target practice.

That's just the start of the questions about this incident. At no point, and in no way, though, should it detract from the real issue of the past few days -- the fact that one of our bravest public servants, an unarmed hero cop trying to help a woman in distress -- was shot close range and is lucky to be alive.

The most important things are wishing him a speedy recovery, getting swift justice for the person responsible, and coming up with solutions that will have us writing about less of this kind of thing in the Trenton area.