At one point during the interrogation, the investigators even threatened to have his pet Labrador Retriever, Margosha, euthanized as a stray, and brought the dog into the room so he could say goodbye. “OK? Your dog’s now gone, forget about it,” said an investigator.

Finally, after curling up with the dog on the floor, Perez broke down and confessed. He said he had stabbed his father multiple times with a pair of scissors during an altercation in which his father hit Perez over the head with a beer bottle.

Perez’s father wasn’t dead — or even missing. Thomas Sr. was at Los Angeles International Airport waiting for a flight to see his daughter in Northern California. But police didn’t immediately tell Perez.

    • supersquirrelEnglish
      61·
      6 months ago

      I feel like if someone threatens to kill your dog for literally no reason other than they want to hurt and scare you, than it is unreasonable to expect that person won’t attempt to use lethal force to stop you. It is also unreasonable to label that person as a dangerous, unhinged person for reacting in this way.

      What do you think they hate their dog?

      Sure if it came to me choosing between my dog’s life and a human’s life I feel like I am going to choose the human probably right? Even if they are a stranger, honestly it just wouldn’t feel right to pick my dog idk… but if the human is just casually telling me they are going to murder my dog for no good reason, than I think one has ethical permission to use any action necessary up to and including ending that person’s life in an attempt to stop the unnecessary murder of the dog (assuming again the dog is just chilling, existing, not hurting anyone). That is fundamentally an act of non-violence though on security camera footage it will look like an act of unhinged violence without context.

      It really doesn’t matter how credible the threat is, if someone makes a threat to murder your dog with a straight face they should expect the owner of the dog to attempt to use lethal force to stop them because the dog’s owner/human friend is completely 1000% justified in doing so no matter the context of whether the murderer supposedly represents a “justice system” or not.

      The only ethical expectation on the dog owner/human friend is to escalate their violent response in a reasonable way that allows for de-escalation at every step (i.e. don’t jump straight to the most extreme response unless you have to)… which is kind of hard to suss out when you have two extremely large men threatening you in a small room within a building brimming with bigots and guns that is wrapped up in a brutally cruel justice system you might never escape if you piss the wrong cop off on the wrong day.