After Allowing One of Their Dogs to Maul McGuire to Within an Inch of His Life, the Toronto Police Do Not Have Even the Common Decency to Summon Veterinary Help for Him

McGuire After Having Been Savaged by a Police Dog

"It's had a huge toll on my whole family, but my main concern is why the police are training dogs in a dense residential neighborhood."
-- Aidan Moreau-MacLeod

As if cops killing cats were not reprehensible enough in its own right, the police in Toronto now have allowed one of their canine partners to join in on the free-for-all. That was the deadly frightening reality brought home firsthand to a black and brown eighteen-year-old tom named McGuire when he was run to the ground and savaged by an unidentified K-9 police dog in an alley behind his house at the intersection of Defferin and West Dundas streets.

Although the brutal assault occurred sometime during the morning hours of June 4th, McGuire was forced to suffer all alone throughout the remainder of the day and well into the evening hours until his desperate plight finally was discovered. "It's unbelievable," his twenty-five-year-old owner Aidan Moreau-MacLeod told the Toronto Star on June 9th. (See "Toronto Police Dog Savages Pet Cat.") "My father came home to find McGuire critically injured."

Considering that McGuire was not admitted to the Yonge-Davenport Pet Hospital until 10 p.m., it likely was well past 9 p.m. before he was found by the elder Moreau-MacLeod. That in turn makes its highly probable that he was forced to endure simply horrendous pain for up to as many as twelve hours.

Under such hellish circumstances it is nothing short of a minor miracle that he did not succumb to the large puncture wounds that the dog left in his back. In particular, he very easily could have either bled to death or died from an infection during the course of the day.

On June 7th he was relocated to an unnamed animal hospital in Scarborough but now is believed to be back at home. "The injuries are bad but, thankfully, not fatal," was all that Moreau-MacLeod was willing to divulge to the Star.

At first neither Moreau-MacLeod nor his father had any earthly idea about what had happened to McGuire. On the following day, however, the members of an unidentified landscaping crew who had been working in the neighborhood the previous day and thus had witnessed the attack came forward of their own volition and courageously informed the former of what had transpired.

Whereas most white-collar workers are severely deficient when it comes to standing up for what is right and wrong, there is an awful lot that can be said for the honesty, simple decency, and compassion of their blue-collar counterparts.(See Cat Defender post of March 25, 2011 entitled "Compassionate Construction Workers Interrupt Their Busy Day in Order to Rescue Chabot-Matrix from a Stream in Maine.")

When contacted by Moreau-MacLeod the Toronto Police belatedly came clean and admitted that it was indeed one of their dogs that had nearly killed McGuire. The attacker, as it turns out, was being trained in a vacant schoolyard across the alley from Moreau-MacLeod's house when it either broke free from its leash or was intentionally released by its unidentified handler.

Since all police officers are not only inveterate liars but involved up to their eyeballs in all sorts of unprofessional and, quite often, totally illegal behavior, it is naïve for anyone to take anything that they say at face value. In this particular instance, for example, it is quite conceivable that the officer had used McGuire as a convenient guinea pig in order to teach his dog how to apprehend a suspect.

McGuire in Happier Days Before the Totally Inexcusable Attack

He additionally could have been operating under the erroneous impression that McGuire was a homeless alley cat and that absolutely no one would miss him if he disappeared. Since various types of individuals, including police officers, commit a litany of wholesale offenses against the species, any attack upon a cat should be regarded until proven otherwise not only as suspicious but as premeditated as well.

To their credit, the police readily consented to pay McGuire's emergency veterinary bill of C$2,000 plus the cost of his recuperation and rehabilitation but that in no way has laid this matter to rest. "It's had a huge toll on my whole family, but my main concern is why the police are training dogs in a dense residential neighborhood," Moreau-MacLeod complained to the Star.

Sergeant James Hung of Police Dog Services quickly responded by arguing that it is necessary to train dogs in the same areas that they are likely to be deployed once they are on the job. "Dogs will potentially be searching residential areas for suspects or missing people," he pointed out to the Star.

That explanation did little or nothing to convince Moreau-MacLeod. "Once a dog enters a residential area like ours, it should already be perfectly trained," he told the CBC on June 11th. (See "Cat Recovering after Brutal Attack by Police Dog.")

By contrast, McGuire's attacker was only about halfway through its fifteen-week training program. Furthermore, cats are not the only potential victims of police dogs that are allowed to roam freely.

"I live near a park, a community center and a daycare center. We live right next to a family with two young kids, and a good friend of mine nearby has a toddler," Moreau-MacLeod pointed out to the Star. "That's really the problem. The police were incredibly lucky this was a cat and not a small child."

Although Hung failed to adequately address Moreau-MacLeod's criticism concerning the level of training his dogs receive before being introduced into residential neighborhoods, he was more than prepared to answer his last salvo. "The first characteristic we look for in a dog is that it's sociable with people. Our dogs are trained to apprehend, not attack," he told the Star. "Our dogs go out all the time to school events where millions (sic) of kids are petting them."

He did candidly admit, however, that it was an entirely different matter as far as cats are concerned. "Unfortunately, it's like the saying goes, they will fight like cats and dogs with animals," is how he nonchalantly shrugged off the attack on McGuire. "They still have certain instincts where they see cats and raccoons as the enemy or prey."

In addition to exhibiting absolutely no regard whatsoever for either the safety of cats or the feelings and interests of their owners, it is totally inexcusable for Hung and the Toronto Police not to train their dogs to lay off of cats and other animals. That certainly is not the way that reputable shelters operate in that they meticulously screen both cats and dogs for aggression toward other animals and children before selling them back to the public for a handsome profit.

Dorian Barton and Some of His Painful Injuries

Under no circumstances would any of them knowingly allow an individual with cats to adopt an aggressive dog that would prey upon them. Such behavior not only would place the cats' lives in grave jeopardy but it possibly might even subject the shelter to legal action.

The Toronto Police, like all such forces around the world, have pretty much unlimited resources at their disposal in a post-nine-eleven world and as such easily could afford to train their dogs not to attack cats. The reason that they do not do so is, doubtlessly, attributable to their ingrained contempt for the species and, most likely, their owners as well.

That point is nowhere better illustrated than in Hong's steadfast refusal to introduce such training into the regimen that the attacker and its canine colleagues are currently undergoing. As a result, future attacks upon other cats are a distinct possibility.

Secondly, American cops, and presumably those north of the border as well, have a long and checkered history of gunning down cats even remotely suspected of being rabid. Once that petit fait has been grasped, it no longer seems all that farfetched that an officer of the law would deliberately sic his dog on a cat. (See Cat Defender posts of March 31, 2008, September 16, 2009, September 22, 2011, and September 27, 2014 entitled, respectively, "Cecil, Pennsylvania, Police Officer Summarily Executes Family's Beloved Ten-Year-Old Persian, Elmo," "Acting Solely Upon the Lies of a Cat-Hater, Raymore Police Pump Two Shotgun Blasts into the Head of Nineteen-Year-Old Declawed and Deaf Tobey," "Neanderthaloid Politicians in Lebanon, Ohio, Wholeheartedly Sanction the Illegal and Cold-Blooded Murder of Haze by a Trigger-Happy Cop," and "Falsely Branded as Being Rabid by a Cat-Hater, an Animal Control Officer, and the Gorham Police Department, Clark Is Hounded Down and Blasted with a Shotgun.")

The totally shameful, irresponsible, and unprofessional behavior exhibited by the Toronto Police in the aftermath of the attack on McGuire tends to lend support to the suspicion that it was intentional. First of all, neither the officer in question nor any of his colleagues apparently did anything at all in order to protect McGuire.

Specifically, any halfway decent officer of the law would have run after the dog and immediately pulled it off of McGuire. Based upon the severity of his injuries, however, that quite obviously was not the case.

That in turn left the senior citizen of the feline world to fend off the much larger and stronger canine all by his lonesome. It is not known how that he was able to pull off that stupendous feat, but perhaps he was able to dig his claws into the dog long and deep enough in order to force it to relinquish its hold on his back.

He then perhaps was able to flee into his house, up a tree, or underneath some nearby object. Either way, there cannot be any denying that he had an extremely narrow escape.

It also is not beyond the realm of possibility that the officer and his colleagues stood idly by laughing off their rotten asses all the while that McGuire was being mauled to within an inch of his life. That supposition is further bolstered by the alarming fact that the police never made any attempt whatsoever to either procure life-saving veterinary intervention for McGuire or to contact his owner.

To put the matter succinctly, they behaved exactly like common criminals who had just committed a dastardly offense. Every bit as disgusting, they would have gotten away scot-free with their criminality if it had not been for the forthrightness of the conscientious landscapers.

Glenn Weddell

Like police forces everywhere, the one in Toronto certainly is not adverse to trampling all over the law and civil liberties that it is sworn to uphold. Most notably, its officers engaged in widespread brutality and illegal arrests at the G20 summit back in 2010.

For example, when Dorian Barton stopped in Queen's Park on June 26th in order to photograph the mounted police, a Toronto police officer came up behind him and knocked him to the ground with his riot shield. The officer then proceeded to pummel the peaceful bystander more than five times in the head and shoulders with his night stick.

As a result, Barton suffered a broken arm, a black eye, and an assortment of bruises. Hospital worker Andrew Wallace not only witnessed the unprovoked attack but captured several images of Barton's attacker on his mobile telephone.

Ontario's Special Investigations Unit looked into the matter twice but was unable to convince any of the four-hundred officers that had been bivouacked in downtown Toronto for the capitalists' powwow to even come forward and identify the clearly recognizable face in Wallace's photographs. Unlike their bootlicking, lying counterparts within the American capitalist media, the Toronto Star and the CBC refused however to sweep the matter underneath the rug.

As a result, forty-nine-year-old officer Glenn Weddell eventually was identified and charged on June 20, 2011 with aggravated assault and assault with a weapon. (See the CBC, June 10, 2011, "Special Investigations Unit Charges Officer in Dorian Barton G20 Case.")

As things eventually turned out, that was destined to be just about all the justice that Barton was ever to receive from the courts. That is because when the case finally was adjudicated on May 31, 2013, Ontario Superior Court Justice M. Gregory Ellies chose, in the face of all evidence and logic to the contrary, to believe Weddell's selective amnesia at the expense of Wallace's eyewitness testimony. The hooligan thus walked out of court as free as a bird and likely is still on the job committing additional assaults against innocent members of the public.

Weddell obviously not only was as guilty as sin but had perjured himself as well and that assessment is buttressed by the fact that his employer, the City of Toronto, earlier had settled a civil lawsuit brought against it by Barton for an undisclosed amount. (See the Toronto Star, May 31, 2013, "Toronto Police Officer Glenn Weddell Acquitted of G20 Assault on Dorian Barton.")

The case also convincingly demonstrated that it is virtually impossible for there to be anything even remotely approaching an honest cop. Some of them may very well be decent enough individuals in their own right so long as they are left to their own devices but once they start not only to turn blind eyes to the criminal conduct of their colleagues but to protect them by perjuring themselves that is the end of their integrity. All of them are required to take an oath to uphold the law and lying is the very antithesis of honesty.

Officers of the law additionally should be compelled to observe the laws that they enforce against the remainder of society. That is no longer the case, however, in that they and their supporters have so perverted matters that they now operate above and beyond all political constraint.

For example, the unprovoked attack upon McGuire came, ironically, on the very same day that Toronto announced a citywide crackdown on owners who allow their dogs to roam off-leash. In particular, all dogs must now be leashed except when they are either on their owners' properties or in any of the city's fifty-seven leash-free parks.

 Babycakes

Violators are subject to a C$360 fine and that most assuredly should include the Toronto Police for allowing McGuire's attacker to run free. (See the Toronto Star, June 4, 2015, "Toronto Cracking Down on Off-Leash Dogs.")

Regardless of how egregious the offense, there apparently is not any statute that makes it illegal for a dog to attack a cat. Therefore, the only recourse available to Moreau-MacLeod would be for him to instigate a civil suit for damages against the city. If such an undertaking accomplished nothing else, it would force the police into publicly identifying not only the officer who allowed the dog to get away but also the name of the officer who was in charge of the training session. It also might prompt the force to disclose Hong's whereabouts at the time of the attack.

There additionally exists the outside possibility that the force ultimately would be instructed by either the courts or the politicians to significantly alter the way that it trains both its dogs and the officers who handle them. Like dirty laundry that has been collecting in the corner and stinking up the house for way too long, all of these issues deserve a good public airing.

The Toronto Police's utterly inexcusable mistreatment of McGuire fits into an all-too-familiar pattern of feline abuse that can be seen throughout the worldwide law enforcement community. For example on April 19th, two unidentified constables with the Derbyshire Police ran down and killed a two-year-old ginger and white cat named Harry that was owned by restaurateur Tony Hunt and his family.

Instead of promptly owning up their crime, the officers stole and disposed of his corpse. Worst still, if Hunt's sixteen-year-old neighbor, Ali Nisar, had not witnessed their criminal conduct no one ever would have known what had become of Harry. (See Cat Defender post of June 18, 2015 entitled "Harry Is Run Down and Killed by a Pair of Derbyshire Police Officers Who Then Steal and Dispose of His Body in an Amateurish Attempt to Cover Up Their Heinous Crime.")

Just as McGuire's mauling has exposed multiple problems within Toronto's Police Dog Services, it also has raised eyebrows concerning Moreau-MacLeod guardianship of him. The most alarming of which is his unforgivable habit of abandoning him for such terribly lengthy periods of time.

Although it is conceivable that his dereliction of duty on June 4th was a one-time occurrence, it is every bit as likely that it constitutes the norm. If the latter scenario is true, he is indeed fortunate that McGuire was able to steer clear of disaster for so long.

That likely is attributable to the fact that he, according to the CBC, only rarely ventures out of doors. Nevertheless as his recent misadventures have painfully demonstrated, disaster can strike within the twinkling of an eye and from so many unanticipated sources. Above all, whenever Moreau-MacLeod is away, such as at those times when he is working at Bar Negroni on College Street in Little Italy, there is not anyone to come to his defense or even to transport him to a veterinarian should he be either attacked or suddenly become ill.

If he and the remainder of his family are gong to be away from home for such terribly long intervals, he needs to confine McGuire either indoors or inside a fenced-off yard. Contrary to what an awful lot of derelict owners choose to believe, cats require almost constant supervision. Even those that are cooped up indoors by themselves can unwittingly fall prey to all sorts of unforeseen dangers.

Millie

Secondly, it is disturbing to read that Moreau-MacLeod seems to be of the decided opinion that the life of a cat is somehow worth considerably less than that of a child. Whereas some owners undoubtedly would agree with him, there are others who most assuredly would vociferously disagree.

Although it is impossible to determine what role such an ingrained prejudice plays in his proclivity to abandon McGuire, such behavior clearly demonstrates an utterly appalling lack of concern not only for his well-being but his happiness as well. Much more importantly, McGuire is getting on and if Moreau-MacLeod truly cares about him he would dearly want to spend as much time as is humanly possible with him.

While it is well documented that police officers have little or no regard for cats, their estimation of dogs is not all that much more positive. For instance, in this particular case the dog that was allowed to get loose and savage McGuire easily could have been either injured itself or lost forever.

Speaking more generally, police departments all over the world are guilty of inveigling unsuspecting dogs into doing the dirty and dangerous jobs that they are too cowardly and lazy to do themselves. This in turn has led to countless numbers of the these faithful public servants being shot to death by criminals, run down by motorists, and dying from the inhalation of toxic substances.

Others develop cancers as the result of being confined in squad cars with officers who selfishly insist upon smoking in their presence. The naked abuse and myriad of dangers that they are subjected to make it therefore imperative that their employment in the law enforcement field be outlawed. The same is even more so the case for those canines that are conscripted into sacrificing their lives for imperialist war machines.

Given their naked exploitation of their K-9 partners, it is not the least bit surprising that police officers have so little regard for those dogs that are owned by members of the general public. For example on April 3, 2012, Sergeant Russell Metcalf of the Harrisonburg Police Department shot to death Bryan Ware's eight-month-old collie-mix Sadie when she wandered out into the road as he was pedaling his bicycle through the Clover Hill section of town. (See Cat Defender posts of July 18, 2012 and September 7, 2012 entitled, respectively, "The Bloodthirsty and Lawless Harrisonburg Police Follow Up Their Bludgeoning to Death of an Injured Cat by Gunning Down a Collie Named Sadie" and "Peripathetic Helvin Rides to the Rescue of Harrisonburg Police Sergeant Russell Metcalf and in Doing So Puts the Judicial Stamp of Approval on His Gunning Down of Sadie," plus the Daily News-Record of Harrisonburg, January 10, 2013, "Ex-City Officer Fined.")

On January 31st of this year, Detroit police officer Darrell Dawson pumped two shots into the chest of a French Mastiff named Babycakes even though the dog was secured to a ten-foot steel cable and could not possibly have harmed him in any way. The dog was owned by Darryl Lindsay of the 11000 block of Strathmoor Street and even though the police searched his yard and interrogated him, he never was charged with any infraction.

On June 18th, he justifiably filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the police in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan. "Indeed defendant Dawson calmly, carefully and cowardly shot and killed Babycakes from a position just beyond the reach of Babycakes' leash," his attorney, Christopher Olson, told the Detroit Free Press on June 19th. (See "Lawsuit: Cop Killed Dog 'Babycakes,' for 'No Reason'.") "Defendant Killed plaintiff's dog for no reason."

On May 24th, an unidentified Detroit police officer shot a six-year-old black and white cattle-mix named Millie in the face after she barked at him while she was off her leash at the site of old Tiger Stadium at Michigan and Trumbull avenues in Corktown. The bullet went through the right side of her mouth and lodged in the other side of her jaw.

New York City Cops to Shoot Individuals Caught with New iPhone Case

Along the way it tore out the palate in the roof of her mouth as well as several of her teeth. Rushed into surgery at a local veterinary clinic, she survived but at last word was still experiencing difficulties breathing.

Millie is well-known around Detroit in that she often appears on stage with her owner, Alison Lewis, and her band, String of Ponies. On those occasions she either howls along with Lewis or simply lies down on stage.

"It's not just what happened to my dog. The way I see it, (we) were in a public place in daylight. This is how we are handling it? It's like a concern for the community," Lewis complained to the Detroit Free Press on May 27th. (See "Why Did Detroit Police Shot Millie the Dog in Corktown?") "It's completely out of control. Someone who is that afraid in that situation should not have the power of a gun. I want this guy, at least his gun taken away."

She plans on filing an official complaint with the city and has retained Bill Goodman to explore the possibility of instigating a civil lawsuit. "The willingness and readiness to resort to deadly force is not only regrettable, it's dangerous," he added to the Free Press.

Although under Detroit law all dogs must be leashed while they are in public areas, the unprovoked killing of Babycakes has more than amply demonstrated that neither a leash nor a chain is sufficient in order to protect them from the murderous rages of police officers. There used to be a time when officers of the law first attempted to resolve disputes peaceably before only reluctantly resorting to the use of violence but nowadays they will shoot any cat, dog, or human that so much as dares to look cross-eyed at them.

Letter carriers, delivery personnel, and all sorts of other individuals are barked at every hour of the day by dogs but absolutely none of them ever resort to the use of deadly force. Moreover, if private citizens were allowed to shoot every dog that barked at them there never would be an end to the carnage.

In an utterly mind-boggling example of how far conditions have deteriorated, the police in New York City this week began a propaganda offensive designed to convince the public to casually accept the shooting down of individuals spotted with the new iPhone travel case that is shaped like the grip of a gun. "The money that is earned from the sale of this case is blood money earned from the person who is foolish enough to carry it," Patrick "The Big Stench" Lynch of the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association declared to the print edition of the New York Daily News on July 1st. (See "Gunlike Case Could Get You Shot.")

He sans doute means what he says in that experience has shown that he and his colleagues think no more about blowing off a man's head than they do about blowing off the head from a pint of Guinness. Whether the locale is New York City, Toronto, Derbyshire, Harrisonburg, Detroit, or elsewhere, the behavior of police officers toward both animals and individuals alike exposes the terrible truth that most supposedly civilized forces in the western world have devolved into the types of death squads that are so prevalent in Latin America and other backwaters around the globe. With that descent into darkness and death, respect for the sanctity of life has all but evaporated.

Most alarming of all, not too many people seem to really care until either they or their cat or dog has fallen victim to police lawlessness and by that time it is way too late to put the evil genies back into their bottles where they belong. In this latest round of police violence directed at cats, dogs, and individuals, McGuire, Millie, and Barton miraculously survived but all of them possibly could be plagued with lingering health issues for the remainder of their days. Harry, Sadie, and Babycakes are, sadly, pushing up daisies while their ruthless killers are not only still strutting around like lords of the universe but undoubtedly as pleased as punch with all the evil that they have inflicted upon their totally innocent victims.

Photos: Aidan Moreau-MacLeod (McGuire), National Post (Barton), Rene Johnston of the Toronto Star (Weddell), Fox-2 Detroit (Babycakes),  Alison Lewis (Millie), and the New Zealand Herald (iPhone case).