there should be some kind of alarm or something that would sound or relay to the officer to prevent this.

First off I want to state I'm a K9 Officer with a partner I love and spend more time with then my family . He has protected me , my fellow Officers and the public on many occassions helping take violent suspects into custody . I have also protected him on many occassions also . I try to park in shaded areas , make sure my squad and equipment are properly maintained and check on my parner as much as possible if I leave him in the squad . But doing this is not a guarantee against this type of thing happening .

I am lucky enough to have a department that suplies us with take home squads , heat sensors in our vehicle's , window tint and regular maintainance on our squads . We have never lost a K9 to heat stroke in our vehicles but I'm sure someday it may happen . When I read discussions like this I think ; " There but for the grace of God go I . "

The heat sensors for all 22 squads plus 5 spares were paid for by donations from the public to our K9 Foundations run and formed by civilian volunteers . MANY police departments aren't so lucky and there K9 units are faced with a big descision to make if they can't raise enough money for equipment . Some have departments where they can simply show a need and benefit of the equipment and the department will purchase it . Others may do the same and be refused . With these departments the K9 unit must now descide between taking a risk and working without it or pressing the issue and risk the department shutting down the whole unit . This means risking losing a vital tool that is keeping the public and officers safe . Easy for those not putting themselves in danger as there job to say TAKE THE RISK but for those whose butt is on the line it's not that easy a choice .

For those who feel strongly about this subject and want to read into this particular article or others containing just as little information involving the same subject . Rather then jumping to conclusions and condemning the officers , step away from the keyboard and find out if your local law enforcement K9's have the proper equipment . If they don't try raising money for it . I wouldn't recommend publicly insisting the departments pay for it . Usually departments like these respond very negatively to poor press and their response to something that brings them bad press is to get rid of the offending source of that bad press .


Barbara stated :

" When rereading the article, the fact that NO information was provided which alluded to the possibility that this was not negligent was not given by even the police department; they were quoted as saying something to the effect that they would take steps to ensure this never happened again. To me, that sounds as if they acknowledged someone blew it. "


I disagree , it's pretty common for departments after contraversial incidents to say this . For example , My best friend who I partnered with from time to time when we started was forced to shot someone charging at him with a weapon . It was very up close and violent . I sat with him that night through the process . He's a great guy and was very traumatized buy this . It wasn't something he wanted to happen in his career . At the end of that very long night the Chief at the time after learning all the facts came up and stated he was glad he was alright and had the Chiefs full support but the Chief warned him of the backlash that was going to come out of it and it did . The Chief made a very similar statement to the public about learning from this incident and trying to find ways to avoid such incidents in the future . Very common response in most high profile incidents wether the Officer did anything wrong or not .

Usually they don't use the words like never or guarantee anything though because they know short of never using K9's again , they can't possibly guarantee that , even if they got the best equipment money can buy . But in this case the department stated it would never happen again and someone else wanted a guarantee . Both are not possible and I hope they don't learn the hard way .

I know that this will upset many peole here but this will happen again and there is no way to avoid it short of not using K9's in law enforcement . Equipment breaks down , Officers must leave their dogs in the car unattended as part of their job . These are risks we must take like many others in this line of work , there are just no ways around them .

There will be more K9's lost this way but compared to how many K9's are out there it's a very small percentage of dog's that die this way .

The statement is always made in incidents like these that IT SHOULDN"T HAVE HAPPENED and I agree but shootings , stabbings , robberies , etc. shouldn't happen either but they do and K9's are essencial in catching these monsters so others won't be victimised and all of these things are going to happen again and again wether we like it or not . We must take risks both the dogs and Officers and leaving the dog in the squad car will always be a risk we must take .

I agree incidents like this should always be looked into and action taken to improve things if possible but I hate seeing knee jerk reactions by folks who know very little of the REAL story usually condemning the Officer . Why , because knowing the job I know I could easily be in a similar position even if I did everything in my power to avoid it .