Friday police incident with dog in Seal Cove churned Social media all weekend

Those working at City Hall this first day after Labour Day may find this back to work Tuesday to be a busy and challenging one as they open the doors and phone lines at 9:30; that if the swirl of commentary on Social media related to a Friday incident in the Seal Cove area is any gauge of the public's current temperament.

As we reviewed on Saturday, the City of Prince Rupert issued a public statement late Friday afternoon that outlined the nature of a call for assistance to the Prince Rupert RCMP, with members dispatched to the east side of the city to assist the city's Bylaw officers.

As the statement noted at the time, and was followed up with from an RCMP update later in the weekend, those responding to an aggressive dog call, made the decision at the time that the dog needed to be put down in the interest of public safety.

"The Prince Rupert RCMP responded to a request to assist City Bylaws with a vicious dog. Based on the history of the dog attacking a member of the community and the dangerous and aggressive behaviour displayed during the interaction, police made the unfortunate decision to put the dog down, but it was necessary in order to maintain public safety,”  -- Cpl. Alex Langley, Acting Operations NCO, RCMP.

The story then unfolded through a number of Social media forums hosted in the city mostly on Facebook, the first of a flood of commentary through a lengthy overview from the owner of the dog in question, a post that found quite a bit of support from the weekend audience.

The commentary also was strong  as part of the City's own September 1st post to the City of Prince Rupert Facebook page, which provides just a small glimpse of the range of opinions expressed by a large volume of residents to a number of forums as the weekend rolled on.

A fairly significant portion of the readership of those forum posts seemed to be concerned with the policies in place and actions taken in this instance and suggested that more information from the City was required to ensure that future situations may be addressed with a different outcome.

There may be an opportunity for some kind of commentary from City Council tonight as they host a Special Council session at 6 PM, however, the bulk of that late afternoon gathering is expected to take place behind Closed Doors, with that session to start at 5 and will be closed to the public.

Whether City Council answers those themes will be seen as the week moves forward and most likely our first indication of any response from the City will come through their website or Social media options.

City of Prince Rupert website
City of Prince Rupert Facebook page
Mayor Lee Brain Facebook page

For more items of note related to City Council see our archive page here.

Cross posted from the North Coast Review.