Police Officer Leaves Dog in Car for 12 Hours
4 post(s)
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Fri 07 Sep 2007 08:21AM PDT
CarlaGenender
291 post(s)
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How could this happen?
"A Chandler police dog who died Saturday was stuck in a vehicle that comes equipped with a sensor to alert handlers when temperatures get too hot.
But Chandler police spokesman Sgt. Rick Griner said the key has to be in the ignition for the device to work. He said the dog's handler, Sgt. Tom Lovejoy, was placed on administrative leave Tuesday while Chandler police conduct an internal investigation to determine if any department policies were violated.
The Maricopa County Sheriff's Office has jurisdiction in any criminal investigation, because the vehicle was parked outside Lovejoy's home on county land at the time of the dog's death. Investigators said Bandit, a 5-year-old Belgian Malinois, was left unattended for nearly 13 hours after Lovejoy returned from an early morning assignment and forgot the dog was in the vehicle.
Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio said his animal-cruelty unit received many phone calls from angry residents regarding the incident, and he assured them a speedy investigation would be conducted. Arpaio has been an outspoken advocate against animal cruelty, but he said he wouldn't prejudge the Chandler officer. "It doesn?t matter if this officer wears a uniform," Arpaio said. "I'll treat this case fairly and impartially."
Lovejoy's wife, Carolynn, said she doesn't think her husband should be fired or face criminal charges. But she said her husband has agonized over Bandit's death and is willing to take responsibility for what happened. "The whole family is upside-down," she said in an interview on KTAR radio, 92.3 FM. "Whatever they do to him, he will gladly take, and he'll understand."
Carolynn Lovejoy said the family kept Bandit with other dogs in an air-conditioned kennel in their backyard. She said her husband heard the dogs barking Saturday and assumed Bandit was with them.
Her daughter took food to the dogs during the day and didn't notice that Bandit was missing.
"For some reason, it didn't click with her that Bandit didn't run up," she said.
Carolynn Lovejoy said many things happened Saturday that threw the family off its normal rhythm. She said her husband had worked an extra shift Saturday morning and took Bandit with him.
They returned home together around 9 a.m., about the time Lovejoy received a phone call about his teenage son being involved in a car crash in which his vehicle was totaled. The son did not receive major injuries. Chandler police would not elaborate on Tuesday about whether the call came before or after Lovejoy returned home.
Lovejoy discovered Bandit in his police SUV parked outside his house at about 10 p.m. During a routine SWAT drill Tuesday at a Mesa mall, K-9 Unit officer Lin Brannan showed the safety equipment that comes with K-9 vehicles.
He said dog handlers sometimes leave their animals unattended inside their vehicles with the air conditioning running. The vehicles include an engine monitor that triggers an alarm and sends a page to the officer if the engine stalls.
The paging device also beeps in case the vehicle gets hotter than a set maximum temperature. A high-speed fan at the back kicks on if the temperature reaches that level, and the back windows roll down automatically. The vehicle's horn also goes off like a burglar alarm."
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Fri 07 Sep 2007 08:55AM PDT
Unbeliever
67 post(s)
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First of all, the idea of what happens in those vehicles to prevent the dogs from overheating is absolutly fantastic. Although, it does allow for people not to think about it as often as they should. Which leads to things like this happening. There's a difference between people that don't care or meant to do it, and this guy. Although I do feel for the dog in this situation and agree that he shouldn't have had the opportunity to be able to accidently do it, I'm not angry with the guy. He really didn't mean to. If your child was in a car accident, your mind would jump a couple steps too. Unfortunatly, this step looks as if it were the one jumped.
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Fri 07 Sep 2007 10:48AM PDT
crazydoglady
186 post(s)
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I'm very upset and disturbed. I think what disturbs me the most is that I can see how this could happen.....
Like with a child, I want to think that it would NEVER happen to me but to be honest , to think that way is a bit ...hmmm.....unrealistic.
You NEVER know what your reactions are in an emergency until it happens. In this guys case, he was exhausted (my father as a PO use to work many shifts in a row, as many other professions), extremely worried about his son (every teenager's parents nightmare come true). Whether he got the call on his way home or as he was getting home, I have to agree with Unbeliever - your brain just jumps, your heart stops. Then numerous other factors i.e. daughter never noticed dog missing when she went out to feed, hearing all the dogs barking....all this rolled into one makes for a horrible, terrible mistake. An accident.
Albeit, human error, but an accident just the same. This man can recieve no punishment as bad as the way he is going to punish himself and probably for the rest of his life.
My heart goes out to Bandit, may that hero R.I.P. and to the family that they can find a calm in this now turbulent crisis what with the media eating this up as they do whenever someone in authority makes a mistake, and to that policeman - a prayer that he will eventually forgive himself and turn this tragedy into something positive somehow, someway.
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Fri 07 Sep 2007 11:25AM PDT
TinaValant
845 post(s)
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Just caught this on NPR, while driving. THey say he is getting a misdemeanor. This officer KILLED another police officer. We had some cases here in SoFla, over the past few years where parent left their toddler in cars...and forgot about them. The kids died and parents (one father was a dentist, slipped into work and got involved with patients) got much higher charges against them. Granted no punishment is going to bring the kids or Bandit back, but this is really unfair.
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