Sheriff: Facebook post offered $1,000 bounty on deputies who shot the pit bull

Posted at: 06/05/2012 10:46 AM | Updated at: 06/05/2012 2:29 PM
By: Berkeley Brean | WHEC.com

Monroe County Sheriff Patrick O'Flynn said his office is investigating a online threat to shoot the deputies who shot a killed a pit bull in Perinton.

Sheriff O'Flynn made the comment on the morning radio show "The Break Room" on WCMF.

Here's what the sheriff said:

Sheriff Patrick O'Flynn: This is rather unsettling because we did see the Facebook alert through the Crime Intelligence Center. They put out a notice that an individual, I don't know the relationship to the dog owner here, but he did. He offered a thousand dollars to anybody who would shoot the deputies.
Tommy Mule: You got to arrest that guy.
Sheriff O'Flynn: We are currently looking at that from a criminal stand point. 
Tommy Mule: It's a threat.
Sheriff O'Flynn: To go to that level over this, not even knowing all the facts of the case. We're slowing developing the case as far as being able to talk to witnesses and people in the area.

News10NBC has been unable to find the Facebook posting.

On Friday, two Monroe County Sheriff's deputies shot and killed a pit bull named "Diablo" when they walked onto the property of the dog's owner on Whitney Road in Perinton. The deputies were there to talk to the homeowner, Gary Brockler, about a car parked in front of his house blocking the sidewalk. In an interview yesterday, Sheriff O'Flynn said the initial reports given to him say the dog "charged" at the deputies. O'Flynn says state law allows law enforcement officers to use deadly force in the face of an "aggressive animal."

The Sheriff's radio comments were made just hours before an organized protest over the dog shooting outside the sheriff's office and jail.

At one point, about three dozen people and about a dozen dogs stood in the sidewalk on S. Plymouth Avenue. Some people called themselves friends of Gary Brockler and came downtown to support him.

"I know Gary. I knew the dog. The dog's been to my house and played with my dogs. It was never vicious at all. It was a good dog. Friendly dog and I was sad that it happened," Wilfredo Cosme said.

"I came down here because I was really upset by this by the fact that a family pet was shot in their own yard and I'm sure it was unprovoked. Absolutely," Caroline Baars said.
"Can you tell me why you think that way?" I asked.
"Because I own a pit bull. I live with her everyday. She's never aggressive. The way he described his dog is very similar to the way my dog is and pit bulls have a bad rap," Baars said.

Some of the comments from some of the protesters were much more angry. At one point, the protest leader, David Vara, said through a bull horn that this community is full of "trigger happy sheriff's deputies that love to pump lead into innocent dogs."

At another moment, another protester shouted "dog killers!" to a group of Sheriff's Office officers standing on the sidewalk about 100 yards away.

 

 

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