K-9 Dog Shot, Killed After Attacking New Mexico Deputy

[High Plains]

ALBUQUERQUE (AP) -- A Bernalillo County sheriff's detective shot and killed one of the department's dog after it attacked her and would not let go of her arm.

The dog, a Belgian malnois called Bart, was the focus of a pending lawsuit alleging it attacked and refused to release a woman who was chased by police two years ago.

Detective Heather Schreckendgust, 36, was treated at University of New Mexico Hospital for a serious bite wound to her arm after Monday morning's incident. She was discharged Monday night....

....Bart, off his leash sniffing for the man, attacked Schreckendgust. When she couldn't get the dog off, she pulled her handgun and shot the animal.

Link at www.officer.com/article/article.jsp?siteSection=1&id=26488

Mods: I hope I posted the link correctly. This is my first OP.

I thought this might be of interest given the earlier discussion of shooting police dogs...

[High Plains]

1. Should Schrenckendgust be charged with murder of a police officer?

For those who argued earlier that killing a police dog is the same as a killing a police officer, what do you do in this circumstance?

[jayfish]

7. Beat Me To It. -NT-

Jay

[chopper]

11. nope.

not any more than she should be charged with killin a cop if it was a human cop who turned and started shooting her and she shot him in self defense.

[Centered]

19. Seems like self defense...

it will be interesting to see what happens in the suit.

For the record... as was stated at length, Shooting/killing a Police Dog in most states is enforced the same as shooting/killing a human officer.

This is not an opinion, this is not a PETA style attempt to say animals are better than people or that people who harm animals are scum and deserve to die... this is the legal situation upheld by most states.

If you disagree with it begin a campaign to change the laws regarding the implied ranks of these animals.

But lets not start this argument up again.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

31. That means people can get DEATH for killing a DOG!

Radical animal-righters* can bite me (pun intended). This is WAY too fucked up.

_{*Not to be confused with decent, non-crackpot people who fight animal abuse.}

[Loonman]

2. Try the dog in court?

????

[Jackpine Radical]

30. In medieval times they actually did that--tried animals as if they were

humans.

[The Stranger]

3. I wonder what was done to the animal to cause it to react the way it did.

[High Plains]

4. All the story says is this:

"Bart, off his leash sniffing for the man, attacked Schreckendgust. When she couldn't get the dog off, she pulled her handgun and shot the animal."

The dog is also the subject of a civil lawsuit filed by a woman who claimed her arm was mauled and crippled when the dog was ordered to attack her after a high-speed chase.

[anotherdrew]

20. sounds like the dog like the taste of female human blood.

It is a carnivorous hunting animal after all.

[superconnected]

5. they have a dog known to attack and maul people

and they kept it on duty.

I thought dogs were kept for scenting things. Since when are they allowed to literally attack people?

Then a police officer is allowed to kill it and not a citizen who is being attacked.

I think their priorities are screwed up from the beginning - when they called it a full fledge police officer.

[The Stranger]

10. It is sad that some have to manipulate this story to make it about whether

canine units should be protected by capital murder statutes.

If the dog were human, the charge would still not be capital murder -- it (or the human) was attacking someone.

[ContraBass Black]

21. Most departments use dogs for force backup and disabling suspects.

The even have remote-controlled cage releases in the cars.

[LizW]

6. Weird.

Why would this dog do this? I thought these dogs were supposed to be highly intelligent and well-trained. The city I live in has six of them. It was sort of controversial here last year when the public found out they cost $6000 each.

A highly trained, $6000 police dog shouldn't be biting when not given the command.

[Irish Mastiff]

8. Some dogs have been known to attack wonen during their menstrual period.

It is the only thing I could think of. Don't know if it fits or not.
Those dogs are usually put down.

[CAcyclist]

15. That's just an urban legend

There's absolutely no evidence of that.

These dogs are trained to bite people and sometimes they go off-target. It's the nature of a biological organism.

edited to add: As a veterinarian, I have seen what these so-called well-trained police dogs can do. A vet I was working with had her face bitten by a police dog when she was checking his ear. At one clinic I worked at, all the police dogs needed to be muzzled and sedated to be examined. That tends to be the rule rather than the exception. These are highly dangerous animals.

[Irish Mastiff]

24. You are probably right. I got that information from a dog training book.

I just googled it, I'm not coming up with anything valid.

[RamboLiberal]

9. From reading the article sounds like this dog was not well-trained

A federal lawsuit filed by Toni Osborn, who was bitten in October 2003, alleges Bart chewed on her arm ''for minutes, not seconds,'' and that an officer had to put a shock collar on the animal to get it to stop.

Osborn had led police on a 19-minute chase that ended when officers used stop sticks to flatten her tires. Her lawsuit contends that minutes after officers stopped Osborn's truck, Bart was ordered to attack her.

The lawsuit alleges Osborn's arm has been ''rendered into a sort of a weird prosthetic device, still human but dead to the touch.''

Questions I have is where was Bart's handler? The handler should be very near the dog, and the dog should release fairly quickly after command is given. Maybe Bart was badly trained or unsuitable for police work. It's disturbing on the earlier incident that a shock collar had to be used to get the dog to stop.

I'm amazed these days how well trained most of these dogs are and that they can be safely taken home each night and be allowed to be around kids, etc.

Anyone remember the K9's from back in the 60's and 70's? I had a K9 cop that lived down the street from me and those dogs in those days were barely under control. He used to keep them in an outside kennel cause he didn't dare to have them around his kids.

As to Bart, just like I say about my dog. Who knows what gets in to a doggie brain one day and causes that dog to do something totally unexpected. They're not exactly human.

And I think this situation is totally different than the incident that was discussed last week. Unfortunately it sounds like the female officer had no choice.

I'm still curious where was the handler and if the handler couldn't get the dog to release.

Some more info from another news source.

Bart's handler, Deputy Larry Harlan was about 10 seconds behind his dog when he heard calls for help, Baragiola said.

Baragiola said it isn't unusual for dogs to bite suspects, but they routinely ignore deputies.

Schreckendgust was in plainclothes and possibly an official jacket, Kinnard said.

http://www.abqtrib.com/albq/nw_local/article/0,2564,ALBQ_19858_4167002,00.html

[RedRocco]

13. And I'll ask again

Does anyone remember the woman who was charged with murder when a K-9 died after she shared her hamburger with it? This was a year or 2 ago IIRC

[LisaL]

26. No, I don't remember the woman. But if you consider this dog as

a human police officer, this clearly was self-defense by this woman, considering the dog attacked her.

[High Plains]

12. The problem may be that they are given the command to bite...

...when it is not called for. This dog was clearly trained to bite.

There was a case in Prince Georges County, Maryland, early this decade when several police officers were charged with siccing their dogs on people who had already surrendered. Here's the link:

www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn pagename=article&node=&contentId=A4853-2002Mar22¬Found=true

(Copy both lines of the URL)

In an earlier thread, posters suggested that police dogs "saved lives every day," but I'm not sure what they're talking about. As far as I know, police dogs are used for a)sniffing out drugs, b)sniffing out explosives, c)crowd control and intimidation.

Maybe we need many less police dogs...

[hollowdweller]

18. These dogs are a racket. Half of them should never even be sold.

There's lots of money to buy these dogs so I believe about half are not worth a shit. They are the latest fad and the market is dumping a lot of inferior animals on police departments.

The great thing for the cops is who can really prove whether the dog really "signals" or whether the cop just profiled the person and uses the dog as an excuse to go fishing.

I know people who dogs allegedly signaled but they saw no sign of the dog doing anything themselves. Also I know of folks who the dog hit and they had nothing and also that the dog didn't hit and they were carrying.

I recently saw some info on this that more and more of these animals are being challenged in court and made to show that they are really trained. I think this is a good thing.

[anotherdrew]

22. remember the prison dogs they let maul people after 911 in NY or NJ?

Those were not "highly trained" super dogs, they were nasty junk-yard dogs that the guards used to terrify prisoners. Here in the USA. All came to light after denials happened in 2002 I think in NY or NJ.

How well are these training facilities really regulated or even inspected for proficiency? I agree that there needs to be a lot fewer dogs put into this kind of work.

[Blue_Tires]

28. maybe not all that $$$$ was spent on 'training'

a few years ago, i remember one of the suburb DC counties had a set of police dogs (german shepherds, iirc) and contracted out the drug-scent training to some company for some insane sum(i remember it was tens of thousands of dollars)...

a year later, the police are doing homeland security drills, and ALL the dogs failed EVERY single drug/bomb-sniffing test...in fact, other than the fact the dogs could understand basic commands, there was almost no difference between them and the regular household dog....the county realized that trainer had just pocketed the money

[bluestateguy]

14. What if a regular person did that?

What if I was attacked by a police dog and I defended myself by shooting the dog or kicking its head in? Would the police be willing to cut me slack and say it was legitimate self-defense?

Crickets chirping...

[xchrom]

16. lol -- i like that.

i have no opinion about this stuff -- other than i love dogs more than just about anything.

and any job that involves aggression towards people using dogs is something i don't go for, period.

[anotherdrew]

23. 'course not, you'd go down in a hail of bullets as they empty their clips

[Mend]

17. dogs are best when they see themselves below humans,

including women and children, in the pack order. Once you teach a dog to bite and thus be superior to a human, he doesn't see himself as a lower member of the pack. This is dangerous. If a dog shows in the past that he won't release, he is a menace in my opinion. I hate seeing animals trained and used this way. They do so much good for us but using them in Nazi concentration camps,to torture prisoners in Abu Ghraib, attack African-Americans in Birmingham, it makes me sick.

[LisaL]

25. Sounds like the dog was a woman hater, for whatever reason.

Under circumstances, looks like the woman did the right thing by shooting him. In fact, this dog should have not been left on the force, considering his record.

[JanMichael]

27. On Saturdays, I work as a receptionist at a vet clinic

there is a police dog that comes in there to be treated who is so bad, he cannot be seen without a muzzle, or tranqs.

One of the kennel workers has scars on her arm from him.

Training doesn't always mean "good."

The dog that comes in our clinic should be put to sleep; he is vicious.

[digno dave]

29. I work for municipality...we had a K9 cop get attacked by dog

the dog would not let go. He clamped down on his arm for at least 2 minutes. The managed to get it off, without shooting it, but it was a terrifying ordeal, from what i understand. The dog was not rpovoked any any way, from what i know.