Althouse: "Simon told police that he was walking his dog with his girlfriend in the 3000 block of North Fox Street when he told the dog to poop."

June 12, 2020

"Simon told police that he was walking his dog with his girlfriend in the 3000 block of North Fox Street when he told the dog to poop."

"He then heard a voice from a ground-level apartment yelling at them and asking if they were going to train the dog or just yell at it, according to the probable cause statement. Simon said he tried to ignore the yelling but then saw the man point a gun at him."

From "Suspect in homicide near Coors Field opened fire because of dispute over dog poop, police say/Michael Close, 36, accused of firing on victims from his apartment while they were walking their dog" (Denver Post).

31 comments:

Oso Negro said...: The part of the story we have not heard may range from "off his meds" to "heated verbal encounter, after repeated incidents". In any case, who the fuck shoots an unarmed 21 year old girl?; 6/12/20, 8:15 AM
rcocean said...: "firing on victims" is a rather weird, vague way of putting it.; 6/12/20, 8:42 AM
rcocean said...: So, violence broke out?; 6/12/20, 8:42 AM
Owen said...: Shit got real.; 6/12/20, 8:47 AM
Ann Althouse said...: "In any case, who the fuck shoots an unarmed 21 year old girl?"

Who the fuck yells at their dog to get it to poop?

The answer to your question seems to be a dog fanatic who could not tolerate the yelling at the dog.

I'm not justifying murder, only saying that there was yelling, coming first from the victim's companion (who was yelling at the dog) and then from the man who had a gun. You can try to guess what sort of argument ensued. But murder stories often go for the absurdity of the murder being over something very small: Man kills his wife over changing the channel on the television, etc.; 6/12/20, 8:57 AM
Howard said...: Yeah well if it's over something very small then there's usually some underlying pathology that is responsible for the hair trigger and I think that's what awesome nigro is asking about. I think we all know what autocorrect means for that commentators name.; 6/12/20, 9:01 AM
Expat(ish) said...: People yell at dogs, kids, spouses, team-mates, and co-workers. Even though they know it's not optimum and may be counter-productive. People, whaddayagonnado?

I'm gonna go with an oldie but goodie: mentally unbalanced.

-XC; 6/12/20, 9:05 AM
Bruce Hayden said...: Give the guy credit. SWAT routinely kills dogs to prevent them from alerting their masters of imminent no-knock raids, and people often kill their neighbors’s dogs, if egregious enough. This time, the humans were targeted instead.

Maybe because we are apparently cat people, and I have a litter box in dire need of changing (somehow, I get all the dirty jobs, like changing the litter, and running him down in the middle of the night when he escapes, as he did, last night). But dog owners, living in a city (and this is the oldest part of Denver, where all the streets are 45° offset from the rest of the Denver metro area (setup, like most of the west, on section lines)) have a duty to pick up their dog’s shit. The dog owners appear to have found a way around that, by getting their dog to shit on command, in someone else’s neighborhood. I think that I can speak for indoor cat owners nationwide, when I congratulate the shooter.; 6/12/20, 9:22 AM
chuck said...: An acquaintance of mine was stabbed and killed during an argument over a parking space in Washington DC.; 6/12/20, 9:26 AM
Psota said...: Yeah, the shooting is bad.

But yelling at your dog to poop...while (apparently) standing next to someone's poop-level apartment? That's a special kind of a**hole.

And then the boyfriend manages to survive while the girlfriend dies? Was he using her as a shield?

How hard was it to walk away from the shooter's apartment instead of standing there jawing at him?; 6/12/20, 9:31 AM
tim maguire said...: Dogs are neurotic creatures. She may have been anxious for the walk to be done so she could go home, but you'll never get a dog to poop by yelling at it to poop.; 6/12/20, 9:48 AM
Rory said...: "The dog owners appear to have found a way around that, by getting their dog to shit on command, in someone else’s neighborhood."

I don't know the area, but I can imagine irresponsible people in a residential neighborhood directing their dog to an apartment building to take a dump. They'd figure it's less likely someone will challenge them than if they stopped in front of someone's house.; 6/12/20, 10:32 AM
Michael in ArchDen said...: I once shot a man in Reno, just to watch his dog poop doesn't quite have the same poetry...; 6/12/20, 10:52 AM
mikee said...: Life happens fast. Sometimes faster than people can think.; 6/12/20, 11:06 AM
Ignorance is Bliss said...: Suspect in homicide near Coors Field opened fire because of dispute over dog poop, police say...

My number one pet peeve-

The perpetrator opened fire. The man in the apartment is the suspect in the case. The perpetrator and the suspect may well be the same person ( that is what the police suspect. )

Don't they teach anything ( useful ) in journalism school?; 6/12/20, 11:07 AM
exiledonmainstreet, green-eyed devil said...: I had no idea you can train a dog to poop on command.

My old dog trained himself to poop on lawns only if the owners were sitting out on the front porch or in their driveways. Of course, I picked it up, but I think that sly old devil really wanted the owners to see he was using their property as his personal toilet.

Kinda like antifa.; 6/12/20, 11:20 AM
bagoh20 said...: "Man kills his wife over changing the channel on the television,"

Well it's either that or divorce, and divorce is expensive and takes forever. You can't wait for all that bullshit. You'll miss the whole TV show.; 6/12/20, 11:28 AM
The Cracker Emcee Refulgent said...: "How hard was it to walk away from the shooter's apartment instead of standing there jawing at him?"

Really. One thing I see quite a bit is weird parking lot beefs at the local Wal-Mart. Not over parking spaces and the disputants are usually middle-aged or older. How does that even happen? The impervious belief in one's own rectitude has to be one of man's strangest and most comical pastimes.; 6/12/20, 12:03 PM
Saint Croix said...: Who the fuck yells at their dog to get it to poop?

Nobody.

I think you misread the article. The killer's not some deranged dog lover who is killing people to defend the dog. He's mad about the shit, Althouse. People don't like shit. I once got a death threat on your blog when I made a joke about not picking up after my dog. It was a virtual death threat from Madison to Charlotte. Only death threat I've ever gotten on the internet.

The kids were trying to get the dog to poop outside. The article doesn't say how old the dog was. Maybe he was a pup and they were trying to train him (badly). Maybe the kid was in a hurry to get to work and was frustrated that his dog wasn't in the mood to shit right now.

Regardless, the kids weren't yelling at the dog. They are innocent of dog abuse. I call them innocent. And the guy who shot them is fucking crazy. Obviously.; 6/12/20, 12:05 PM
Rabel said...: Could there be a racial angle to the shooting?; 6/12/20, 12:08 PM
jim said...: My dog poops when I say "hurry up", and then she gets a treat.

Let's send every moron in America a gun during this viris-crisis, so they can sit inside and shoot people without having to stop watching Fox News!; 6/12/20, 12:11 PM
Richard Dolan said...: Living in Brooklyn, I can sympathize (to a point) with the shooter. Here, the dog-walkers (a professional calling, and, yes, it's a NYC thing) are generally pretty good about cleaning up the sidewalk after the dogs in their care do their thing. During the lockdown, unfortunately, we've mostly had to endure the dog owners in that role -- and there are a few Masters of the Universe around here who take the dog out early in the morning when almost no one is up but can't be bothered to clean up.

Death penalty is a bit much, but a long stint in the pokey would be fitting. Or maybe just someone who catches them being willing to deposit the mess in the offender's mailbox.; 6/12/20, 12:25 PM
Tinderbox said...: No doubt an ongoing passive aggressive dispute, with these people trying to get the poor pooch to evacuate on this same guy's stoop everyday.; 6/12/20, 1:33 PM
Tyrone Slothrop said...: I legally carry a handgun every day-- yes, even here in the People's Republic of California. I understand that it is an awesome responsibility that requires me to constantly assess when and if I would use that firearm. First, I have to unequivocally believe that I could take a life if the situation warranted, while at the same time knowing that any such situation is going to be very circumscribed. I don't really care if I have a legal duty to retreat, I have a moral duty to retreat. Unless the other guy is threatening my life or someone else's, there's no justification for shooting. If I can back away safely, that's what I must do. Sounds like that guy in Colorado is, at a minimum, in violation of that principle.

An effect of carrying that I hadn't anticipated is the absolute aversion I now have to verbal conflict. I don't even yell at people in the privacy of my own car, formerly a favorite pastime. I guess that would go for dogs, too.; 6/12/20, 2:16 PM
Big Mike said...: But murder stories often go for the absurdity of the murder being over something very small: Man kills his wife over changing the channel on the television, etc.

So Meade has the remote?; 6/12/20, 3:46 PM
Readering said...: good old second amendment.; 6/12/20, 5:05 PM
Readering said...: I know, in UK he would have stabbed everyone.; 6/12/20, 5:06 PM
Michael said...: This has absolutely nothing to do with systemic racism. So why is it news? Maybe the boyfriend will do a nauseating apology for not doing enough for if he had he would have been making posters instead of getting his girlfriend killed.; 6/12/20, 6:15 PM
chuck said...: "Man kills his wife over changing the channel on the television,"

After I saw The Last Detail I asked the local Navy recruiter is he had ever escorted a prisoner to Portsmouth Naval Prison. Yes, he said, he help bring a man there for killing his wife. They shackled the perpetrators hands to his ankles so he had to walk bent over. I told him that sounded cruel. He said, "When you have a bad argument with your wife, you go get a motel room for the night, you don't kill her." He was pragmatic like that.; 6/12/20, 6:24 PM
Matthew Heintz said...: I don't watch dogs poop. There's always more interesting things to look at. But I sure am fascinated by roadkill!; 6/12/20, 7:51 PM
Bunkypotatohead said...: A beautiful young woman gunned down by a Democrat.; 6/12/20, 9:49 PM