Homeless man fights city hall

A couple of weeks ago I went out for breakfast with a friend of mine. She picked up the news paper to see if one of her reporter buddies had a story in the Saturday edition. The story she found was one about a homeless man who had had his dog taken away from him by the city for taking a bite out of crime (I apologize for the bad pun). This gentleman has been homeless for about ten years and has multiple dogs. One rainy day Mr. Paquet was taking refuge from the rain under a stores awning (with the owner’s permission). When two of Montréal’s finest came along to remove him from his dry piece of pavement. One of the police officers grabbed Mr. Packet by the shoulder. I don’t know about you but I know better then to manhandle someone when they have dogs with them. Dogs will always protect their owners from what they perceive as danger. The police officer had to get 12 stitches in his calve. The city then took this mans dog away and sentenced it to death. The courts have overturned the city’s action and released the dog back to his owner. The city came back the very next day and took the dog back to the SPCA to be euthanized.

I don’t understand how the police and the city think they are going to get away with this. If a police officer came along and grabbed a “regular person” to make them move, we would hear about it and that police officer would probably be disciplined. But if you roust a homeless man it ok. I understand that sometimes people who live on the streets for one reason or another may need to be physically restrained to protect them selves and other, but this man was standing on private property with the owner’s permission to keep dry. How was he being a threat to anyone? And as for the city they should use some common sense, if they have no previous complaints about this man and his dogs, why go after them with such zeal. This man lives on the street and I’m sure his dogs play a vital role in his safety out there. I’m not saying that the city shouldn’t investigate the mater, but to take this dog away and kill it before the investigation is concluded is just plain dumb. Two courts have overturned the city’s decision, I think they should just back off and leave this man and his dogs alone.

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