Mr. Taylor's crime? Beating a dog to death.
The facts of the case are pretty horrific. The officer pummeled "Rocko," a tiny Jack Russell terrier, with a mop, choked him and left him lying on the floor all because the pup had soiled a rug. Mr. Taylor then sent a girlfriend a series of unemotional text messages about the beating, including this one: "Yeah I think he's pretty much dead. Imma throw him out now."
We certainly don't question the judge's outrage over the incident. But we do wonder why similar outrage is so often lacking when the victim is a person.
Witness the string of costly settlements Baltimore City has paid out to people who say they were beaten up by police — charges that drew so little interest from those in authority that for years no one bothered to track which officers faced such civil suits. And it took a public shaming, in the form of a video release, to get the city police department to suspend (with pay) Officer Victor Cosom recently, two months after he was recorded on duty raining punches on a man near a city bus stop.
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