A man, being pursued by police, is taken down by a police dog. Then he lifts the dog bodily and leaps off a bridge. He is injured, the dog is dead.
Should this man be charged with killing a police officer?
Suspect Kills Police Dog
Comments
5 responses to “Suspect Kills Police Dog”
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I don’t believe most states consider police animals as actual officers. However, there are specific charges for killing a police animal. And given that the killing was committed in the process of another crime, the punishment could be harsher than otherwise.
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Hmmm…
I’m curious about the impact of this. Strictly from an economic standpoint, I can imagine that it is more expensive to train, house, feed, and work a police dog than it is a police officer (I’m entirely ready to be wrong on that count). That should mean, if we’re punishing the damage a crime does to society, that killing a police dog would be worse than killing a human officer. That ignores any moral disparity between killing a person or a dog, of course.
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Well sure if the officer here is charged with manslaughter:
http://www.nbc10.com/news/14587595/detail.html
As for costs wouldn’t you have to include the cost that the government spent for public education K-12 plus any grants given to a Police officer as training?
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Sorry didn’t proofread that last sentance. Any grants given for college education would goto the cost for that police officer. Naturally you could subtract taxes paid by the officer but if it is a relatively young officer the costs would be greater than that of a training dog. Or an older officer might be said to have ‘experience’ that is worth something.
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I was thinking about the lifecycle costs of a police dog vs. a police officer. I hadn’t thought about the schooling subsidies, but then a dog has a much less length term of useful service. An officer can serve, accruing experience and “paying back” for quite a while, while the dog has to be replaced every several years. That would go toward evening out the costs.
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