Posted on 06/23/2015 10:27:51 PM PDT by nickcarraway
A Richmond police officer shot one of the department's K-9 officers on Tuesday morning after the dog bit him, authorities said.
Sgt. Nicole Abetkov said the act was in self-defense.
She said the dog, a 3-year-old Belgian Malinois, bit the officer just before 7 a.m. in the parking lot of the Richmond Police Department. The K-9’s handler left his car with the dog still in it to go inside the station for a meeting, police said. The dog somehow got out of the car and bit another police officer in civilian clothes. The officer who was attacked, a four-year veteran of the department, fired his handgun once, according to police.
The officer was taken to the hospital after suffering unknown injures. The dog suffered critical injuries and was taken to a PETS Referral Center in Berkeley, Abetkov said. The dog has since been transferred to a UC Davis veterinary hospital and is now in a stable condition, authorities said.
It was not immediately clear what prompted the dog to bite the officer. Authorities said the dog had never had a problem before.
Police investigators said they plan to scrutinize the system of extra locks and remote controls packed into each K-9 patrol cars.
“Everything will be checked out with a fine-toothed comb,” Abetkov said.
Richmond police has a 54-year history of using police dogs – more than half of that time with the Belgian Malinois breed. The dogs were initially recruited to search Richmond’s numerous warehouses. Officers use them now mostly for tracking felony suspects and searching for evidence and narcotics.
The dog should be placed in protective custody since the cop is likely to try to shoot it again.
When they start baking their own doughnuts, look out.
(sorry, couldn’t resist)
Bet you a dozen donuts the media will never mention this again.
Richmond is tough duty....man or dog
The officer who was bitten was male.
My guess is that the K-9 officer inadvertently triggered his remote door release, something that is normally used in an emergency. He dog responded the way he was trained. Remote door release=hostile situation.
Read the story. It was not his dog, it was another cop.
Why was the dog left in a car, in Richmond, in late June. Sure, it was early morning but. I’ll bet the dog had been left before, knew it was going to get hot, and was in an aggressive mood.
Yup.
Clearly a murder here.
Looks like I was dead wrong about her plugging the police pup. I am glad the dog is recovering, though perhaps his career as a K-9 is over.
Except nobody has yet died.
He left the dog in a car? What a dumb thing to do . Even at 7 am summer temps are high enough to create a death chamber for a dog. I wonder if the animal was frenzied by heat or fear?
He left his dog in the car to just run in briefly? If we do that we get our windows knocked out by overzealous morons.
K9 vehicles are supposed to be left running at all times with the A/C on to keep the dog cool.
Just curious as to why the officer/handler didn’t take him into the building for the meeting.
yes, arrest her!
Its a felony to shoot a police dog.....if a "civilian" does it.
The only question is how overweight is she?
Go read the story again.
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