'Police stop shooting our dogs' protest in Sheffield

Transcript

00:00KILL THEIR DOGS!

00:02NBSL!

00:04Hi, I'm Sandra. I'm the organizer of this protest.

00:08And we are here basically because so many dogs have been killed,

00:12shot by South Yorkshire Police lately.

00:16And some of those dogs were completely innocent.

00:20And it just simply isn't necessary.

00:24Many of us here are dog owners, obviously.

00:28And we are just really not happy with how things are going at the moment.

00:32And we are trying to appeal to the police, but also to Oliver Coppard

00:36to talk to us and see how we can make changes.

00:42I believe that police are really struggling at the moment

00:46after the introduction of the ban, and that's understandable.

00:50We all know that they didn't get additional banning, etc.

00:54But the consequences of this for our dogs is that armed officers get sent out straight away

01:02if there's any report of a dog being lose, or even malicious reports.

01:08And armed police arrive, no questions asked, and just shoot the dogs.

01:12I know they say they, you know, evaluate the situation,

01:16and they make an assessment.

01:18But, you know, from what we see on the ground, this is not really happening.

01:22And the problem is also that, of course, armed police are not dog handlers.

01:26They can't read dog behavior.

01:28They don't know whether a dog is dangerous or not.

01:30So, yeah, I mean, it's horrible, has horrible consequences.

01:36And we can't forget that, you know, too many people, dogs are like children.

01:42They're their family.

01:44And if I imagine my dog being shot, it's, yeah, it just doesn't matter.

01:50Yeah, I think the finances of the whole thing need to be restructured.

01:56And, you know, there needs to be more investment in dog handlers and dog units.

02:02So people, you know, there need to be more dog-experienced people

02:06that police can call on when there is a dog incident.

02:10Many of the dogs that have been shot could have easily been seized by an experienced person.