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From the description in the last link, the officer didn’t miss the target and hit the girl. He missed the target, the bullet splattered and the girl caught a jacket fragment in the face. If a bullet strikes a hard surface at close range, that can happen even to the person pulling the trigger. I know it has happened to me on several occasions when training, that’s why I am a big fan of eye protection.
As far as “Did the dog need to be shot?”, I’d say no. Officers currently have a lot of latitude to shoot dogs. The more incidents like this make the news, the less latitude they are going to have. I’m not sure what his department’s policies are but I imaginr he is having a talk with someone about why his gun was even out in the first place.
Not suprisingly, normal people who aren’t living lifestyles that get police invited to their house to solve problems they can’t solve get very upset when they imagine an officer coming onto their property and shooting their beloved household pet. The fact that he injured a child bystander as well makes it even more horrible. Those people will be too happy to support laws restricting officers because they are imagining these events in the context of their own lives, not in the context they often occur.
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