Quote: Anne Jones

It states that they were not sure if the 'system' was installed on THAT vehicle.


It should be on ALL the k9 vehicles. There should be no question as to whether it was or was not installed on the vehicle.

I can't think of a K9 officer that would disagree with you. The reality is; if you don't have it, you go to work anyway. We are fortunate that all of our units have them, not everyone is so fortunate.

DFrost

"There should be no question as to whether it was or was not installed on the vehicle."

If only ......


The local PD has them now, but they were a gift: an expensive gift that was not in the budget. Very very fortunate.

And they were installed one at a time so as not to have all the vehicles out of commission at once. That is, there was a period when the systems were owned but not yet in the cars.

There was a loooong period prior to that when they just were beyond the budget and not possible, until a private citizen gave them himself. The gratitude was palpable, believe me.


Yes, whether the equipment is great or not, the K-9s go to work.

Connie stated:

" There was a loooong period prior to that when they just were beyond the budget and not possible, until a private citizen gave them himself. The gratitude was palpable, believe me.
"

and PSD's worked for years before heat alarms were invented . Thank goodness for progress .

In the poll on the news story website, 91% of respondents (3624/3949) said there should be some form of disciplinary action against the officer or his department.

The picture of the police cruiser was awful, to think of that dog's panicked last moments.

However, it (the article) definitely seems to have given the impression to the public that the officer was (criminally) negligent. As though he wanted his dog to suffer and die.

The commenters mostly seem very angry and are comparing it to parents who leave children in the car or owners who leave dogs in a car while they go shopping. There is no concept that the car is the dog's office so to speak and the officer obviously does not have the option of leaving his K9 back at the station! It also does not mention that it is standard practise to leave the cruiser running with the air on while you are called out - not just park, roll up the windows and go have a doughnut like the article made it seem the officer did.

I have a distaste for the media in general, but this article is so ... biased. I'd like to hear the officer's side of the story - though we won't because of the investigation.

The public are so quick to blame the officer. It drives me nuts. First off when people ask me about the equipment at work I tell them this first. "I always knew there was price on human life, I just never knew how cheap it was until I worked for the City of New York". Faulty or outdated equipment or maybe sh** was on and the cop was wrestling around on the ground. The media always paints them in a bad light. When is someone going to assume that the public servant did their best and something bad still happened? Tragic loss of the dog.

Yeah, the picture was pretty heartbreaking.
Gave me almost the same feeling in the pit of my stomach as when I saw the video a few months back of the asshole suspect that took a PSD off the side of the bridge with him.


A fair and impartial investigation will probably find the handler did nothing wrong here. Just a hunch.
If the handler is remiss, by all means, string him up, hang him and burn him in the public square.

BUT

Cops are innocent until proven guilty too, ya know.

Blame the authority figure gets old pretty damned quick.

What a horrible tragedy for everyone involved. I cannot imagine how this would be to deal with.