3 min read
In the wake of a recent viral video showing a Fayetteville, North Carolina, police officer punching his dog in the face repeatedly, another video went viral for capturing the moment a Dayton, Ohio, police officer struck his K-9 partner in the face. Both police departments attempted to justify the incidents as acceptable treatment/“correction” of these intelligent, sensitive dogs. In addition to addressing these agencies directly, PETA—which had supported the use of K-9s since its inception—has written to the top five law-enforcement organizations in the U.S. declaring that the time has come to encourage their members to phase out the use of dogs altogether. Find out how PETA is speaking out for dogs used by law enforcement:
Why Should the Use of Dogs in Law Enforcement Be Phased Out?
PETA is calling for an end to the use of police dogs due to the fast-growing, dramatic uptick in reported cases of officers violently abusing their K-9 partners and of dogs used in law enforcement dying painfully from overheating or in other horrific ways. In addition to the Fayetteville and Dayton incidents, the group’s letters were prompted by the following cases, which all occurred in just two months:
- A former sheriff’s deputy was charged with aggravated animal cruelty after being caught on video repeatedly hitting his K-9 partner, Neuro, 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.
- Vader, a police K-9 in Arnold, Missouri, died of heatstroke after he was left unattended in a patrol vehicle and the safety equipment failed to activate.
- A sheriff’s office 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.
Do Police Forces Need K-9s in 2024? No!
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. Several police departments across the country—including the New York Police Department, the Massachusetts State Police, and the Houston Police Department—already use tactical robots, which can be deployed in situations that could otherwise result in serious injury or death for K-9s and human officers.
