Posted on 08/23/2014 1:11:17 PM PDT by moonshinner_09
MILLS, Wyo. A Wyoming police officer has pleaded not guilty to an animal-cruelty charge that alleges a police dog died after he left it in a hot patrol car for several hours.
According to an investigator's statement filed in Natrona County Circuit Court, Mills police officer Zachary Miller left the dog, a 10-year-old female black lab named Nyx, in his patrol car for over six hours July 9.
"It's a tragedy," Mills Mayor Marrolyce Wilson said.
The car was running, but the air conditioning was off and outside temperatures reached 86 degrees, KCWY News 13 reported (http://bit.ly/1tAzzhs).
Miller, a four-year veteran of the Mills Police Department, has pleaded not guilty to the misdemeanor charge, the Casper Star-Tribune reported Friday (http://bit.ly/1vsZr03 ).
KCWY reported that he appeared for a preliminary hearing Friday.
Nyx was trained to detect drugs and had been with the department since 2006. Miller had been her handler for the past two years, and the dog lived with his family and went on family vacations.
Mills police Chief Bryon Preciado said it's not normal to leave a car running that long. "I'm not justifying it," Preciado said.
The affidavit states that Miller left the dog inside his car, went into the police department about 6 a.m. and did not return to the car until about 12:20 p.m. Police dogs are allowed inside the station, Preciado said.
(Excerpt) Read more at charlotteobserver.com ...
You forgot the part at the end of section “a” that says
“Police officers Exempt”.
It is written in Invisible Ink.
I’m guessing they didn’t think he met the “knowingly, willfully” standard of the statute.
It doesn’t sound like he deliberately set out to kill the dog. It sounds more like he killed the dog because he’s an utter moron who’s too stupid to be in law enforcement. He should never be allowed responsibility for another dog, either a K-9 officer or a pet.
exactly.
Good point.
You’re wrong. First off, any citizen would be in jail for the same thing. For that alone he should cool his heels behind bars for a bit.
Secondly, taxes paid for that dog. You can’t “just get another one” as easily as you seem to think, because it’s a highly trained animal, and only a certain number are bred and are of the calibre needed to succeed in the training. This makes them quite expensive!
Thirdly, and most importantly...this guy tortured an animal to death that trusted him and depended on him for her well being. Most likely she went to her death thinking “Where is my person?”, trusting utterly that the officer would come rescue her, because that’s the nature of dog.
He may not have directly laid his hands on her, but allowing her to cook to death in the car is torture regardless. If you can’t find it in your heart to understand he gave a trusting beast an awful death, then consider it destruction of property, just as if he had smashed up his cruiser carelessly.
“How this can happen again and again with children and dogs, show up on the news and the morons among us keep on doing it. What kind of a world do these people live in?”
Assuming she simply forgot she had the kid, and the kid was sleeping in the back seat - very easy. Try living in an earthquake area and see if you can remember to always have an escape plan when you visit a building - you won’t (or at least I couldn’t during my time in CA, although I tried many times). Earthquakes drop off one’s mind quickly...until the ground rumbles again.
Best advice if you have a kid that’s too young to get out himself - get tinted windows and put in the front seat if it’s just the two of you. Worked for my kids.
So he not only killed the dog, he wasted 6 hours of gasoline as well?
IMHO, the dog wouldn’t die in 86 degree weather. Should’ve left the windows cracked.
I don’t think these mothers forget that they have a kid in the car. I think the kid is sleeping and the mothers tell themselves *I’ll only be in the store for a minute and I’ll get back to the car before he wakes up*.
Maybe the dads who leave the kid in the car and go into work all day actually forget they had the kid in the car, but not the mothers.
I read the articles when I can, and there are all types, from drug users to otherwise-fine people who forget. The typical rule for forgetters is a change in plans...maybe needs to drop the kid at daycare on the way to work and gets a phone call...or simply puts his mind on work. I still remember one time one of my kids was in the car - I looked to my back right to make a lane change and the kid startled me...I completely forgot he was in the car. That was the last time any of my kids ever rode in the back seat with either me or the wife. Another common scenario is that grandma has the kids...again, something she’s not used to, so she forgets. My cars back then didn’t have air bags and I kept them a long time, just because of that...but had they had air bags, I’d still use the front seat.
The sad thing is that kids got pushed into the back seats after they were being decapitated by early-generation air bags (hundreds). They kept it relatively quiet out of fear of losing political support for air bags...so news stories about it were pretty sparse, but some info got out. Since then, airbags have gotten safer, with proportional inflation etc. - but I would never drive a car with an early-generation air bag - they had one setting-full blast and typically did a good job even on adults (re-arranged my mother’s face, in fact...thankfully plastic surgery put it back together).
http://articles.latimes.com/1996-11-28/news/mn-3765_1_air-bag-concerns
I will repeat my assertion, dads actually forget the child is there, mothers do not.
The thought process goes something like this........... the kid is asleep....... he will cry if I wake him up........... he is heavy I don’t want to carry him in the store......... I’ll be back to the car in just a minute............ no one will notice.
I won’t argue that...definitely fits my experience!
“It doesn’t sound like he deliberately set out to kill the dog.”
No but they sure treat civilians like they did, so why not
the cops.
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