Arnold K-9 Heatstroke Death Part of Growing Epidemic, Prompting PETA to Call For End to Use of Police Dogs

For Immediate Release:
August 7, 2024

Contact:
Reed Bolonyi 202-483-7382

After Vader, a police K-9 in Arnold, died of heatstroke after he was left unattended in a patrol vehicle and the safety equipment failed to activate, PETA—which had long supported the use of K-9s—sent letters to the top five law-enforcement organizations in the U.S. urging them to recognize that the time has come to encourage their members to phase out the use of dogs altogether. Some law-enforcement agencies are already using robotic dogs to deal with crime.

PETA’s letter comes amid a dramatic uptick in reported cases of officers violently abusing their K-9 partners and of dogs used in law enforcement dying from overheating or in other horrific ways. In addition to the incident in Arnold, the group’s letters were prompted by the following cases, which all occurred in just the past two months:

• Viral video footage showed a police officer striking his K-9 partner in the face in Dayton, Ohio. The Dayton Police Department later released a statement that attempted to justify the officer’s actions.
• A Fayetteville, North Carolina, police officer was caught on camera repeatedly punching a K-9 and dragging him by the collar. In this case, the police department also attempted to justify the officer’s actions.
• A former sheriff’s deputy was charged with aggravated animal cruelty after being caught on video repeatedly hitting a K-9 named Nero and slamming him to the ground in Bryan County, Georgia.
• A police officer in Prince George’s County, Maryland, was charged with six counts of animal cruelty—including two felonies—after both of his assigned K-9s, Daisy and Spartacus, were found to have “gaping open wounds” on their necks from the metal prongs of electronic shock collars.
• A sheriff’s K-9 was found dead in his handler’s vehicle, reportedly from heatstroke, in Dorchester County, South Carolina.
• Nitro, a police K-9 in Coalinga, California, died after being confined to an outdoor kennel over the weekend in temperatures that reached 114 degrees.
• Coba, a K-9 with the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division, was fatally shot while a law-enforcement team was serving a felony warrant near Prosperity, South Carolina.

Many additional cases are detailed on PETA’s website.

PETA frequently collaborates with law-enforcement agencies across the nation to investigate, charge, and prosecute animal abusers and previously responded to such incidents by calling on agencies to employ humane K-9 training and handling methods, install devices in patrol cars that notify officers if the temperature rises, and retire K-9s subject to abuse. But due to the growing epidemic of cruelty to and deaths of these dogs, PETA is now calling for K-9s to be replaced with modern policing technology, such as tactical robots.

“Even though there are good officers who respect and protect their dogs, K-9s are in crisis, as they are punched, body-slammed, and left to die in the heat by their own police handlers,” says PETA Senior Vice President Daphna Nachminovitch. “PETA is calling on law-enforcement agencies nationwide to phase out these programs that subject dogs to violence from birth to death.”

PETA notes that several departments across the country—including the New York Police Department, the Massachusetts State Police, and the Houston Police Department—use tactical robots, which can be deployed in situations that could otherwise result in serious injury or death for K-9s and human officers.

PETA’s letters were sent to the leaders of the National Association of Chiefs of Police, the National Sheriffs’ Association, the National Troopers Coalition, the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association, and the Fraternal Order of Police.

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to abuse in any way”—points out that Every Animal Is Someone and offers free Empathy Kits for people who need a lesson in kindness. For more information, please visit PETA.org or follow the group on X, Facebook, or Instagram.