Cop Tries to Shoot Dog, Plugs Kid Instead

Armed robber shoots police officer. Police
officers track suspect down to a trailer park. Dog enters the scene
and a deputy opens fire—except that, in a twist on the usual story,
he misses the pooch and plugs a young child, instead. That child is
10-year-old Dakota Corbitt, pictured.

The story is all kinds of wrong.

The incident occurred in Coffee County, Georgia. The sheriff’s
department has a sketch of the events on its
Facebook page:

Coffee County Sheriff Doyle Wooten confirms that a Juvenile boy
was injured during the arrest of Christopher Barnett at a mobile
home in the Burton Road area late Thursday evening. Barnett is
believed to be the person who shot a Douglas Police Officer earlier
Thursday morning. Barnett is also believed to have been involved in
an Armed Robbery that occurred at Flash Foods. Investigators with
all local agencies worked all day to gain information to identify
and locate Barnett. During the arrest the juvenile received a
gunshot wound to the leg. Due to the fact that it was an officer
involved shooting and the local GBI agency was involved in the
arrest of Barrett, GBI agents from the Eastman and Kingsland GBI
offices responded to investigate the incident. It is our
understanding that the injury was not life threatening and the
Juvenile was taking to Savannah for precautionary reasons. Our
prayers are with the juvenile and his family and also our officer
that was involved.

This case is presently under investigation and when the
investigation is complete we will update with a full report.

Christopher Barnett, the alleged armed robber and cop shooter
(Officer Larry Carter was
treated for his injury and released the same day) sounds like a
piece of work, with police touting a “32-page rap sheet.” But at
the time Coffee County deputies caught up with him, he was
allegedly making “friendly conversation with some of the residents”
and “trying to blend in.”

That’s when, according to Sheriff Doyle Wooten, a dog ran up to
a deputy. The passive voice comes up a lot at this point, with WALB

reporting “The deputy’s gun fired one shot, missing the dog and
hitting Corbitt.”

The gun was, apparently, a bit jittery, and might require some
retraining.

Police didn’t release the name of the deputy with the nervous
weapon, unlike those of the armed robbery suspect and the shot
kid.

Like the wounded officer,
Corbitt has been released from the hospital. He was hit behind
the knee, though officials assure everybody that no major arteries
were damaged. Major bones, joints, and the boy’s ability to see
police officers in the future without quaking in fear or
rage…That’s another matter.

There’s no hint of malice in the shooting of the boy. But
carelessness, an unfortunately common police tendency to shoot dogs
as a first reaction, and a nasty and horrifying outcome of the
risks posed by that tendency for a child—that’s enough.