Twenty years ago, Ice Cube of N.W.A. insisted that certain kinds of cops are just "punk m#$&#rf%$#&rs with badges and guns." In this instance, I certainly can't come up with a better description:

A police officer shooting at a snake apparently killed a 5-year-old boy who was fishing at a nearby pond, officials said.

Austin Haley was fishing with his grandfather, Jack Tracy, when Tracy said he heard a shot and saw something hit the water just a few feet in front of the boat dock where he was standing.

Moments later, a second shot hit Austin in the head.

A Noble police officer who had responded to a report of a snake in a tree apparently fired the deadly shot while trying to kill the snake on Friday, City Manager Bob Wade said...

Tracy has little doubt. "I'm not saying the cop shot him on purpose," he said. "But let me tell you - if I had a kid and put him in this car and didn't put him in a car seat and he got killed on the way to town, they'd charge me with murder ... and what this cop did is a lot worse than that."

A child is dead over a snake. A godamn snake.

I work with a number of tough-guy types who are so afraid of snakes that other coworkers sometimes toss pieces of rope or bungee cords into their laps and yell "snake!" It always results in screaming and flailing and freaking out, much to the enjoyment of other coworkers. This strikes me as stupid for a number of reasons. For one, snakes want less to do with humans than we want to do with them. Anyone who's ever even seen a snake in the wild knows this. For another thing, snakes don't just drop out of the sky into people's laps, and a reasonable person should know that. And for a third thing, anybody with a phobia that controls them to this level ought to realize that they need help.

Now, some moron who's so afraid of snakes that the sight of one in a tree causes him to go all to hell has initiated a chain of events that's lead to a child's death. And some idiot cop has decided that it was a good idea to fire a gun to placate some other moron's snake phobia. Irresponsible isn't a strong enough word. What we have here is shocking capriciousness with regard to firearms, an idiotically unreasonable attitude about snakes, and a blatant disregard for the safety of others.

Somebody needs to burn for this.

Oh, and by the way, the snake was a black rat snake, a species that is utterly harmless and helps control rodent populations.

Labels: News