My quick take on the Cookeville Police Department/Dead Dog fiasco:

In this editorial and this editiorial from Sunday's Knoxville News Sentinel (Motto: We've Dropped the Hyphen and Passed the Savings Along to You!), they both touch on the supposition that this case reflects badly on Tennessee and Tennesseans all over the country. Well, that may be true but from all I'm hearing this incident could very well have happened in Kentucky. Or Georgia. Or Iowa, or Massachusets, or Alaska even.

Before the country starts blaming Tennessee and its citizens, maybe they should start blaming the cowboy mentality employed by a large number of law enforcement officers nationwide. That's who it reflects badly on. It's true we canonize them as heroes in NYC but that level of heroism doesn't always trickle down to every cop.