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Died 5/20/16
Westchester Police dog’s death in patrol car probed
The cruiser had a system that was supposed to lower the windows if it became too hot inside.
Westchester County police are investigating after one of the department’s narcotics dogs died in a patrol car in May. Suki, a black Labrador retriever, was found unresponsive in a patrol car on May 20 after the car’s temperature alert system either failed or was not set properly, said Kieran O’Leary, a Westchester County police spokesman. She was rushed to a local animal hospital but could not be revived, he said. “Our department is deeply saddened by her passing and grateful for Suki’s service to our officers and the people of Westchester,” O’Leary said. Suki was 6 1/2 and had spent five years with the county police, helping uniformed patrol officers and the narcotics unit. She was assigned to the same uniformed patrol officer for that entire time and lived with the officer at her home, said O’Leary. He would not identify the officer because, he said, it is a personnel matter and is still under investigation. On May 20 the officer was working an overnight shift and, following a traffic stop, arrested two suspects on drug charges, O’Leary said. She arrived at police headquarters around 5 a.m. to process the suspects, he said. The officer took the suspects inside, at which point the booking process was extended by “several hours” because “one of the suspects refused to identify himself and was uncooperative and combative at times,” O’Leary said. O’Leary said police dogs are only brought inside “when they can be supervised properly and remain in the vehicle when they cannot.” “In this instance, Suki was not brought in because the officer had two suspects to proccess – photographs, fingerprints, criminal complaint to prepare, evidence to voucher, etc.,” he wrote. The outside temperature was “moderate” at the time, O’Leary said. In addition, canine unit cars are “outfitted with technology that is designed to monitor the internal temperature of the car,” and to sound an alarm and lowers the windows if temperatures reach an unsafe level, he said. The system also sends an alert to a pager that the canine officer wears, O’Leary said. That technology, however, “did not function in this instance,” O’Leary said. “Our department is seeking to establish whether the equipment malfunctioned or whether an error occurred in setting it,” he said.
