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Police officer faces probe after shooting at barking Labradors

Take time... This is the spot where a Douglasdale policeman fired a warning shot at two Labradors.

Zaheera Walker

A Douglasdale policeman who shot at two barking Labradors might have taken the controversial licence to shoot to kill too far.

This was the view of residents questioning the necessity of the junior sergeant who reached for his gun and fired when the tan and black dogs barked at him at the corner of Douglas Drive and Topaas Avenue, outside the police station.

They ask if he could not have thrown a stone or clapped his hands to quieten them down or, better yet, backed away and called the SPCA for assistance. Some said it appeared strange that a ‘terrified’ policeman walked towards the dogs to fire a shot, instead of skirting the area to enter the police station some 10 metres away.

At the time of the shooting, the dogs were standing on gravel that was being laid along the edge of a garden the community was laying for the police station.

Witness Melaina Gross said she had her children and their nanny with her in the car when she turned into Topaas Avenue and saw the policeman fire a shot into the gravel near the dogs. “I just could not believe it. What if the bullet ricocheted and harmed my children? He looked scared and I understand he had every right to protect himself but surely he had other alternatives?”

Gross told the Chronicle that when she heard the shot she sped away for the safety of her sons James (3) and Noah (17 months), and nanny Mina Madau.

“My mind flashed back to an incident last year when a man fired a warning shot at a cellphone thief and killed a child in the process.”

After the shot went off the two dogs ran up Douglas Drive and a woman in a white Polo stopped and managed to calm them down.

Douglasdale police commissioner Director Jenny Naidoo told the Chronicle the matter had been brought to her attention and was under investigation. She asked the newspaper not to speak to the officer concerned until the enquiry was complete.