Mary Brown's dog symbolizes the child in a way the police can get away with the killing even if the child or citizens are innocent.
The police showing no remorse about killing an innocent life of the dog/child demonstrates the corruption of the environment there.
The correct answer is D) There is no single topic sentence. a topic sentence is used to summarize what the writing is about, and there is no sentence that does that in this piece.
The gifts because the old man took his stuff and gave it back to him, to pretty much in a way say " it's okay"