K9 Death A Manslaughter?

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Cal4D4

New member
Just off Fox News, and no link yet available:

Customs was moving some of their K9 officers around and forgot one in a car for several days. Officer Fido died. If a citizen contributes to the death of a K9 officer, he is risking at least manslaughter. Will anyone be charged with manslaughter in this case? Why or why not.
 
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Greg L

New member
How does one forget his dog? Aren't they paired with one officer and live with him? It makes forgetting your pistol in a school bathroom seem kind of small.

Greg
 
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JimDiver

New member
If I was moving around and forgot my dog in the car for several days, I would at least be charged with animal cruelty.....

How the hell do you forget your dog was in the car???????
 
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dinosaur

New member
There was a story in the local paper today about charges being dismissed against a man who forgot his grandchild was in the car. I think he was supposed to drop him off at daycare before going to work. This was in Philly I believe.
 
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FPrice

New member
I can imagine many things, but for the life of me I CANNOT imagine leaving a dog or a kid in a car and forgetting about them. I would have to be under a lot more pressure than I have ever experienced for something like that to happen.
 
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Fred Hansen

New member
If a citizen contributes to the death of a K9 officer, he is risking at least manslaughter.
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Could you please cite the manslaughter statute that would be used for the case? Since you use the words "at least" I assume that you are implying that the person might expect to face Murder 1 or 2? Even Kommiefornia can't be that &%#$ed.:confused: :confused: :barf: :barf:
 
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KSFreeman

New member
jmbg, well, if the bunny huggers in Kalifornia define "human being" as a doggie, then it could be manslaughter, or K9slaughter.:D
 
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Rail Gun

New member
If a citizen contributes to the death of a K9 officer, he is risking at least manslaughter.
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How can someone be charged with MANslaughter when no person was even hurt? It's only an animal. That's outragous.
 
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Don Gwinn

Staff Emeritus
I do believe there are jurisdictions where the killing of a police dog is charged the same as the murder of a police officer, which would be "at least manslaughter" indeed. Supposedly the reasoning behind this is that evil drug dealers were poisoning, sniping and otherwise killing the drug-sniffing dogs.

I happen to know for certain that our small town's drug-sniffing dog (not a K-9 patrol, just a drug sniffer) was buried with full honors as a police officer. They wanted to bury the poor little fella uptown on the square right next to the WWI memorial, but that was eventually shot down. The dog had been "on the force" for a couple of months and had never been called out to search a car.
 
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Cal4D4

New member
They were transporting the dogs to Texas from I am not sure where. One got forgotten for several days and perished. I am still trying to find a link.

My reference point is as Don Gwinn stated. Maybe just Kalifornia, but assaulting (and I assume killing) a K9 has been treated like assaulting a human officer. On the flip side, SWAT/entry teams/officers in pursuit zap guard dogs/pets as required in performance of their jobs. Anyone help me to come to grips with the disparities?
 
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444

New member
I have certainly heard of people being charged with various crimes against police dogs. From what they said, the dog was considered a police officer. Harming the dog in any way was considered the same as any other police officer. I can't give you sources but all were TV and radio news programs.
We had a case here locally a couple years ago where a police officer shot his next door neighbor's dog because it kept coming into his yard. This was a small lap dog, there was no physical threat and the incident occured in a housing tract, not a rural area. The community was ready to lynch this guy. I know that formal charges were considered but I don't know the outcome, I don't pay a lot of attention to the "news".
As was already mentioned, I can't imagine someone forgetting about this dog. I have spoken to police K9 officers several times and I know these dogs basically never leave their side. They take them home etc. I know our arson dog never leaves the side of the arson investigator that it is assigned to from early puppyhood till the time it retires. They pick the dog up at I believe Quntico when it is about 6-7 weeks old and go through a training program that lasts for several months. They are never apart again. Our arson dog can't even be fed by anyone else. The officer carries a belt pouch of food at all times. Throughout the day he takes out an eyedropper of an accelerant and puts a drop somewhere out of sight of the dog. The dog has to scent the accelerant in order to be fed. This goes on all day and the dog never, ever eats any other way. It doesn't even know what a food bowl is. I would think that anyone with the intelligence of a house fly would at some point realize something wasn't quite right. He never had to let the dog out, clean up any crap, feed it or whatever; and he never noticed this ? And he should be allowed to have a gun and I shouldn't ?
 
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griz

New member
I don’t see much disparity. There have been a couple of instances here locally of people accidentally leaving kids in the car with death the result. No charges were filed because there was no intent. There have also been cases where the parents left the kids in the car INTENTIONALLY, and were charged with abuse, even though the kids did not have to be hospitalized. It’s a matter of intent.

The deal about shooting dogs on raids does sound like a disparity at first, but it has its reasons. There have been times when they sent a dog in to flush out a barricaded bad guy and the BG killed the dog. The only thing they could charge him with was destruction of government property because it was "only" a dog. The laws written for protection of police K9s were to remove that option from the bad guys.
 
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444

New member
Not to run this into the ground, but how is it an accident to leave a constant companion for days ? How can you accidently forget you left your kids somewhere ? This is something I can't imagine. It would be like forgetting where you work or forgetting where you live and having that considered normal. Whether it is kids or a K9 dog, your whole life revolves around them. A lot of what you do in a day's time is for them, or about them. I don't have kids but every time I have gone out with a woman or a couple with kids they always express their relief of how nice it is to have a babysitter so they can relax and enjoy themselves. This seems to be one of the main things on their minds. How do you accidently forget something like this ? What was said to the officer/handler on those several days when he showed up to work without his dog ? Or did everyone else forget he had one also ?

How about that war on drugs or war on terrorism. The customs officers at the airport can't remember they are assigned a dog and we trust them with our national security. Maybe he walked around the luggage or cargo with a leash in his had dragging on the floor as he inspected the stuff. He knows something isn't right be he can't place it. And where did all this hair come from on the car seat ?
 
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WilderBill

New member
I don't know about treating a dogs death as manslaughter, but I do know that if an entry team offed my dog I would consider it a direct attack on a family member and respond appropriaty.
 
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Blackhawk

New member
Not to run this into the ground, but how is it an accident to leave a constant companion for days ?
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Read it again. "Customs was moving some of their K9 officers around...." Seems that maybe the dog wasn't WITH his handler, in fact, was between handlers, therefore didn't HAVE a constant human companion at the time.

The schlub transporting the dog or dogs may not have all his oars in the water either, and combined with a sloppy procedure not requiring constant accountability such as when transporting prisoners, the dog may have been asleep or something when schlubby went off duty, and out of sight, out of mind.

A Customs dog is liable to be ANY breed or a mutt of almost any size, and we don't know Customs used this one for anything besides sniffing for contraband as opposed to highly trained, specially bred police dogs.

We don't know any circumstances that point to anything but accident, but they may exist and accident IS hard to believe....
 
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444

New member
I would certainly like to know more about this. I find dogs interesting, especially working dogs. The reason I mentioned the arson dog in my above post was because it would seem to me as a layman to be similar to any dog who's primary function is scent detection. Assuming this, I would think it would be trained and maintained in a similar manner. Our departments dogs are mutts. They are not aggressive in any way and do not stand out as some type of law enforcement dog. This is one of the reason they are chosen. At the scene of a fire, these dogs are sometimes walked through crowds of bystanders attempting to scent accelerants on people's clothes. They are purposely chosen to not appear to be law enforcement dogs. But that is all way off the point. This seems to me like a number of people dropped the ball which I suppose could be described as an accident. It just seems like a highly unlikely accident that no one with any common sense could make.
 
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