I picked out all the quotes I found most salient:

1. “Based on the behavior exhibited by the dog, believing the dog to be severely injured or infected with rabies, and as the officer feared being bitten and being infected with rabies, the SPD officer felt that his only option was to put the animal down,” a post on the City’s Facebook read.

2. “UNACCEPTABLE!!!!! Sturgeon Police force is seriously a joke,” one user wrote.

3. “This is a disgrace. The officer involved needs to be immediately removed from duty and charged with felony animal abuse."

4. “I pray the owner sues the city, the mayor, the officer and the department. I will be filing a complaint with the State Attorney General’s Office. The entire city council should resign after hiring this man.”

5. “What a disgusting and disappointing response to abuse of power and neglect of an animal,” wrote one person.

6. “If it’s ‘within his authority’ to shoot a dog who is not a clear threat to anyone then no person or animal is safe in our town. I am so beyond disappointed in this city,” said another.

7. “That dog was injured and confused, not rabid. He wasn’t even barking or being aggressive. He didn’t even yelp when the catch pole was put on him. I am just in shock over this.”

8. “If your officers are that afraid of a little dog wandering around... maybe, just maybe, they shouldn’t be police officers.”

9. "The officer was going strictly based off the fact that the dog walks with his head sideways due to him being deaf and blind," he said.

Officials, after just four days, determined the officer was not wrong in his actions.

"I thought it might have rabies" is a sentiment born out of fear and ignorance. Just like "the man was displaying unusual behavior" or "appeared to be on drugs"

This police department really gave a gun and a badge to someone who fears for his life encountering a 13-pound shih tsu.

It's a fucking shihtzu, which are tiny. And this ones blind and deaf. Holy shit do we need drastic and violent police reform. Like fire 90% and completely retrain from the ground up. Not gonna happen though obviously.

In the US a dog that works with the police has many protections legally.

In the US any other dog is merely property and the police kill them with impunity.

In the US when a police dog is euthanized there are lines of officers and police workers and first responders to show respect.

In the US any other dog is just leverage for the police to threaten.

Unrelated to the incident, but I'm getting really fucking tired of articles using some unknown set of people posting online as justification for the conclusions of their articles. I don't give half a shit what someone posted on the departments facebook page. I give a shit about the incident at hand. Don't tell me how other people reacted online and expect me to do the same. Tell me what happened and let me come to my own conclusion.

Garbage article and garbage cop.

Moved to the police force sometime after an excessive force lawsuit when he was a correctional officer.

https://casetext.com/case/pearson-v-woodson-3

When I first read this, I thought it said “police called to help shoot him dead” and I was like yeah, that’s why you would call the police, but why would you want him shot dead?

If I wanted to nail a nail slowly, I would grab a hammer. If I wanted it nailed fast and in a very shitty way with all sorts of metal fracture generating stresses, I would use a nail gun. But if I wanted it shot dead, I would call the cops because that's what cops do.