Law Humor

A minor dispute, but one that generated two excellent quotes.

On September 16, a dog owner in Lafayette, Colorado (near Boulder) was ticketed after an altercation involving himself, his two dogs and a local cyclist.  Peter West was walking his two dogs -- a 98-pound boxer and a much smaller second dog -- when they allegedly "charged" Erich Toll who was riding his bike nearby.  (They were not on leashes, but apparently dogs are allowed to run free on county land as long as they are sufficiently trained to immediately obey verbal commands.)  Toll, who said he felt threatened, pulled out some pepper spray and sprayed the dogs with it.

Seeing this, West said he ran up to get the dogs, and Toll then sprayed him in the face.  "He was about to start hitting me," Toll claimed, "and I had no way to defend myself.  A lot of fear happened really quickly."

That's the first good quote -- "a lot of fear happened really quickly."  I guess this is what someone says when he doesn't want to admit he "got scared."  In the same way that "mistakes were made," fear sometimes happens.

Before the fear happened, West had called 911, and police arrived shortly thereafter.  The dogs did not "immediately obey verbal commands," at least with the cops watching, and so West got a ticket for having them off-leash.  A deputy said Toll "probably overreacted," but he was not charged.

West conceded he had been ticketed for off-leash violations before, but said his dogs just wanted to run alongside, and were harmless.  Toll disagreed.

"The white one wants my flesh," he said.

That's the second good quote.