SAN DIEGO, CA. Remember when the local media went ape over the death of a police dog who died when a guy who was attempting suicide jumped off the Coronado Bridge and took the dog with him? For days, it seemed the local media went crazy pulling our heart strings about the poor canine. Now, another police dog has died – not from gunshots, blunt trauma, disease or anything normal, but because his police officer handler left the dog in a hot, locked-up patrol car.
Forrest, the K-9 “officer” and 5-year-old Belgian Malinois had died June 20th. Now, we have the results of the necropsy and the investigation, which for some reason, took an entire month. The findings will now go to the San Diego County District Attorney’s Office. “The findings of the necropsy are consistent with heat exhaustion/heat stroke as the cause of death,” the veterinary pathologist wrote.
“There is no doubt that this dog died a horrific death” said Dawn Danielson, director of Animal Services. “Now it will be up to the District Attorney to determine whether a crime was committed.”
Officials said he was left inside the patrol car with its windows up at the Alpine home of San Diego Police Officer Paul Hubka where temperatures reached 108 degrees that day. Sources told NBC 7/39 that Officer Hubka returned from an overnight shift, went into his house, and came out a few hours later to discover Forrest’s body in the back seat of his patrol car. Hubka is a 22-year veteran who’s a director of the San Diego Police Officers Association. [Go here for the original piece.]
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It was a distraction from the dead hooker in his trunk. Move along, nothing more to see here.
Sigh.
I’ve heard that there were laws for the prevention of animal cruelty before there were laws regarding child abuse. It wouldn’t surprise me it this outrages the public more than the story about the cop who shot into a car in Oceanside and injured an 8 year old boy.
Gee, I wonder… how will Dumanis react to this.
Incidentally, Officer Paul Hubka, was the third plaintiff in a successful law suit against the City of San Diego by canine-unit police officers to get the time they handle their dogs as part of their base pay when figuring out their pensions. Go here to a Reader blog article about that suit.