On Monday we released TND’s Liberty Rising Radio interview with Ozymandias Media documentary film makers Michael Ozias and Patrick Reasonover. Click here to listen.
In addition, Michael Ozias published an insightful article in PoliceStateUSA.com (see below).
Their Kickstarter funding campaign has raised over $48,000. Nevertheless, the film makers only have about 26 hours to reach their goal of $100,000. If that level is not reached, the campaign will end, pledged donations will not be collected and Ozymandias Media will have to start all over again. That would be unfortunate. This documentary has considerable potential to raise awareness about one of the manifestations of our increasingly militarized police forces nationwide. The lack of training and needless slaughter of thousands of dogs is unconscionable. But this issue also has the ability to transcend partisan politics and to help create a national discussion about the militarization of our police forces in general. The important documentary, Farmageddon, achieved a similar victory and “Puppycide” might very well have the same impact — if not greater.
Read the article. Listen to the Liberty Rising Radio interview. Consider supporting Ozymandias Media. Pledges to their Kickstarter campaign can be as small as a dollar. Kickstarter is easy to use. Even Amazon.com account holders can make donations using their Amazon account.
– Eric Dubin, Managing Editor, The News Doctors
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Puppycide: Can a Documentary Save Dogs? A call to action to end unaccountable shootings of house pets by police
By Michael Ozias
Cindy Boling describing how her border collie, Lily, was shot and killed by police. She is now leading an effort to have Texas law mandate changes at police departments across the state.
In a suburban backyard in Fort Worth, TX, I learned an interesting film-making lesson: It’s hard to focus a camera when your eyes are welling with tears. I started rolling a half hour before. I had asked Cindy Boling simply, “Can you explain what happened?” From there she walked me and fellow filmmaker, Patrick Reasonover, from one end of her property to the other, not simply telling us what happened, but re-living it. If a police officer arrived at a wrong address — my address – and proceeded to shoot my dog simply for approaching him curiously, I suspect re-living that experience would be about the last thing I’d ever want to do. But Cindy was doing exactly that. Why? And why was I covered in camera gear recording it?
A film-making team and I were there to capture Cindy’s story for a documentary called PUPPYCIDE, centered around the frightening trend of law enforcement shooting pet dogs. But what exactly is PUPPYCIDE about? Since starting work on this film, I’ve heard that question a lot. I don’t have an easy answer and what I do have seems to be constantly evolving. It’s at once an issue, a collection of tragedies, a made up word we all wish didn’t exist. But foremost in my mind today, I’d say it’s a journey. One started over a year ago and, if our Kickstarter campaign succeeds, will be competed next year.
Lily
The project started when I came upon a YouTube clip of a man, James Smoak, kneeling next to his car beside a Nashville highway, screaming as an officer blasted his puppy in the face with a shotgun. Did I just see that?! It was like every dog owner’s greatest horror played out before me. Clearly an anomaly, I thought. Before I could even think it through, my fingers were typing “cop shoots dog” into the search engine. That began the seeing of things never to be unseen. And with them an internal voice saying something must be done to stop this.
I ran the idea by Patrick, the co-owner of our production company, Ozymandias Media. Together we then ran it by others. It’s funny; you can mention a social issue with the gravest of human implications and be met with a blank stare, but introduce someone to the idea that police are shooting our dogs and you get an incensed “This. Must. End!!” We knew we had to do something. So we started researching the issue and reaching out to victims.
You’d be hard pressed to investigate puppycides for more than 15 minutes and not encounter the name Cheye Calvo. He generously offered to open the doors to his home, where his dogs were shot, and let us capture his story. We took our cameras to Maryland where he walked us through the incident in every detail. A marijuana dealer shipped product to Cheye’s address where a 3rd party was supposed to pick it up off the porch before Cheye, a completely innocent bystander, became aware of it. I suspect the dealer didn’t ship it to the actual address of his recipient because it might result in a police raid on the property. He would have been right. Five minutes of researching the address would have shown the police that the home belonged the town’s mayor. Sadly, that research didn’t happen. So, the mayor’s home was raided and his two black labs, Payton and Chase, shot and killed. At a press conference following the tragedy, his wife Trinity, with tears in her eyes, recounted a little girl asking her, “If they can do this to your dogs, how can we ever trust them?”
Beyond the killing of pets, and traumatization of a family, it was clear that the police had an epic public relations problem on their hands and in all likelihood a lawsuit. We know that police departments very rarely apologize to victims for shooting their dogs. They certainly didn’t apologize to Cheye and Trinity. And in our interview with Cheye it became clear how broken the officer’s reasoning might be. Police don’t want to apologize because that would admit guilt, guilt that could invite a lawsuit. Standing in Cheye’s living room, he explained how he didn’t think he would have sued if they had simply apologized. Their denials of responsibility and accusations of his dogs’ aggression angered him, and the necropsy proved that at least in Chase’s case he was shot from behind while running away. It was this treatment that prompted Cheye to sue. I’m certain other victims feel the same. So, on balance, if a department kills a dog under questionable circumstances, they might do themselves quite the favor by following the simplest of playground rules, admit that what you did was wrong and say you are sorry. It would help the families recover, possibly spare the department a lawsuit, and most importantly, it’s the right thing to do.
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