Chalk up yet another dead dog onto the scoreboard of animals killed by police in this sick new era of search and destroy law enforcement. Usually the furry, four-legged victims are shot and killed execution style, often in front of the owners in overly aggressive raids. Some times at the wrong address and others during trespassing as in a recent incident in Chicago. This time however, it was just plain stupidity as a police officer from a hick Wyoming town called Mills left the department's own K9 animal locked in a police vehicle to suffocate on a summer day.
Details are provided in a report from the website of the Casper Star-Tribune that is entitled "Mills police officer faces charge in death of K9 left in hot car":
A Mills police officer faces an animal cruelty charge following the death of a police dog that he allegedly left in a hot patrol car for several hours.
Zachary Miller, who has been with the police department for four years, is charged with misdemeanor animal cruelty in connection with the death of K9 officer Nyx, a drug detection dog.
The officer left the dog in his patrol car for more than six hours while the vehicle was parked outside the police department, according to an investigator's affidavit filed in Natrona County Circuit Court. The car was running, but the air conditioning was off and the windows were up.
“It’s not normal to leave a car running that long,” said Mills police chief Bryon Preciado. “I’m not justifying it. He shouldn’t have been here that long.”
Preciado said there is no policy on the time frame for leaving police dogs in patrol cars.
The affidavit states Miller arrived at the police department at 5:30 a.m. on July 9. Miller left shortly after to respond to a call with the only other officer working that day, Jake Bigelow. The two returned to the police department with Nyx in the vehicle about 6 a.m.
The officers went inside the department, leaving the dog in the car, and did not return to the car until about 12:20 p.m. The outside temperature had gone from 53 to 86 degrees, according to the affidavit. Police dogs are allowed inside the station, Preciado said.
During the time the officers were inside Miller was training Bigelow on patrol-duty procedures. Miller is no longer a training officer, Preciado said.
The story of the broiling of poor Nyx is indicative of some of the low-grade types that police work often attracts as well as a reflection of poor training. If officer Miller was indeed involved in "training" another officer the only thing that was taught was how not to treat a department and public asset as well as how to kill a dog. The negligence in the animal's death is not only embarrassing but a waste of taxpayer dollars. This is something that is more often seen by some mouth-breathing moron of the type that leaves their own children in hot vehicles for extended periods of time, which like actual police shootings of dogs happens all too frequently in our star-spangled Idiocracy.
This sad and lamentable tale of the stupidity of an agent of the government has drawn widespread attention. Reuters reports on it "Wyoming officer charged over death of police dog in hot car", it is in The Guardian "Officer charged in hot-car death of police dog", the New York Daily News "Wyoming cop charged with animal cruelty after death of K9 dog left in hot squad car" and dozens of other sources. The Casper Star-Tribune also reports on protests by animal rights activists "Protesters call for action after death of Mills K9 officer Nyx" who should perhaps be a bit more visible during an actual "puppycide" pet assassination than an egregious act of idiotic negligence such as this.
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