You may get some hate for this- but I could see the logic even if I somewhat disagree with the thought. I will be honest and undermine my position by saying that sentimentality and emotion underly my beliefs on the matter. The primary argument from a practical stand point for why police dogs are treated as officers is to discourage people from harming them or resisting them under the premise that as a “dog” they have no legal protection- unlike an officer. But- by the same token we could treat a side arm or patrol car or uniform or cell as an “officer” to disuse criminals from damaging those things too. I have no hard data to PROVE that a police dog has a sense of duty or even a grasp that it is upholding the law. Beyond it being a living being I have no way to differentiate it from any other piece of valuable or difficult to acquire materiel used in law enforcement. I have my own and officers testimony and belief that these dogs are more than just equipment or even animals...
... with the inherent value of an animals life being subject to perspective and not quantifiable, and most people placing animal life below human life. However- I do have one counter to the logic from a logical stance. Police officers. It is a crime- a unique and specific crime carrying harsher punishment to assault a police officer in the line of duty. Why would that be? Why would our legal system put an additional penalty that makes punching an officer worse than punching any other human? The law does not hold police superior to civilians. At least it isn’t supposed to. Yet they do have superior protection in law that suggests an assault on an officer is worse than on a civilian. Despite an officer having the training, back up, and equipment to handle such assaults better in theory than an average citizen and despite the officer specifically operating in a capacity where such dangers are “part of the job” and so would in theory be more prepared than someone peacefully existing?
There are really only a few answers. Officers are afforded protections or abilities beyond a normal citizen not because they are “superior in the law,” but because those protections facilitate their ability to continue to perform a vital service. The legal penalties from assault exist either out of sentiment that an officer puts themselves in danger and that danger should be minimized through deterrence, But is punitive in that it punishes those who would oppose or attack the system and its representatives while acting on official duty. Thusly- since police dogs perform a vital function and have assigned duties- unlike equipment which is merely used as a tool and has no autonomy- to attack a police dog satisfies the same criteria used to make the argument that officers require special protection. The practical argument that you are hindering or damaging the systems ability to do its job while undermining future function- or the sentimental criteria that the life of this entity which...
... is put in uncommon danger for the protection of society should receive protections which are above those afforded the “average” entity. So an argument that a police dog receive the protections granted an officer does NOT automatically argue that all dogs should be legally considered as people- however an argument that police dogs should not be protected as officers are is near default to an argument that officers shouldn’t be protected- unless that argument isn’t made from logic and hard fact but from sentiment and emotion in which case we can logicall apply sentiment and emotion to dogs and are hence- back to square one. So my only argument is that the argument invalidates itself.
Okay, but the argument isn't "it shouldn't be illegal to hurt a police dog" it's that it shouldn't be equal to hurting a police officer. You can hold people responsible for hurting police dogs more than hurting other dogs without making them equal.
In the same way that hate crimes are a bigger deal than non hate crimes. It's more illegal to break in the window of a minority for being a minority than it is to break in a window because some guy slept with your wife. But it isn't equivalent to killing a minority because they are a minority because of course it isn't.
I would agree with you for by and large. However- how much does our legal system really need another set of laws specific only to police dogs? I will use California law here because laws vary and these are the ones I most familiar with. Battery- that’s when you try to assault someone and actually commit an act of violence (assault can be just spitting- or trying to hit and missing-) is divided into “simple” and “aggravated.” The former is when no serious injury occurs. The latter is when it does.
Simple battery against an officer: charged as misdemeanor. Sentence of no more than 1 year (without special circumstance- 3 or less years with,) and or a possible fine of $2000. Reasonable for a dog. The fine covers expenses as you would with any property even if we view the dog as just property. If you vandalize a police car- just vandalize. Which includes scratching the paint- less than $400 in damage is a $1000 fine and up to a year in prison. Sentenced as a misdemeanor. More than $400...
Enters felony territory. You are charged as a felon and sentenced with a general minimum of 3-5 years. The fine is $10,000. A man was arrested on felony vandalism for sitting on a police car and denting it. So far the penalties for simple battery on a police dog are in line or less than those for scratching a police car. Battery with injury becomes A felony with 16 months minimum or 4 years for serious injury. You’re still doing more time and facing a fine for hurting the car. California state law does not differentiate between serious injury or death of a police officer versus anyone else. It also does not differentiate penalties for use of a weapon against a police officer versus anyone else. It does however contain an additional exception pertaining to violence against police.
If one is in the midst of committing an “aggravated felony” - the term is a little confusing. It involves certain drug or illegal trafficking acts, murder, but also can encompass a broader set of crimes, with the primary factor in deterring wether a crime was an aggravated felony being the actual sentence. For instance a theft case may be a felony, but not an aggravated felony, unless circumstances of the case illicit a sentence of greater than a given duration, at which point the crime becomes an aggravated felony. But for most intents and purposes think of murder, trafficking, or “extra bad” or “special cases” of regular crimes. If an officer is injured seriously or a weapon is used and the crime is an “aggravated felony,” the perpetrator gets a strike on their record. Under California “3 strikes laws,” 3 or more such strikes on their record at one time- and commits any violent felony, the minimum sentence will be 25 years to life if convicted regardless of any other factors.
So we can see that at least in California- not offering a police dog the protections of an officer up to the point of serious injury or in the case of aggrigated felony, would mean that the penalty for injuring or killing a police dog would legally be less than the penalty for damaging a police cruiser a similar amount. Even if we take away any honor, duty, or basic value of life the animal may have and designate it “equipment,” the police dog would have LESS protection than any other piece of equipment an officer has. Their gun or their radio would have harsher penalties for damage or destruction. Once we reach the point of aggravated assault- the law is one of principal. It isn’t mean to protect the officer or even punish the perpetrator but to protect the public on the principal that someone who would use a weapon or commit aggravated felony against an offficer enacting their duty is someone with 0 fucks to give. Not the sort of person you want walking around. So much like the 3...
... strikes law the intent at least, is to create a separate class of criminal so that you aren’t trying “good people who did bad things” with bad people who did similar but more terrible by nuance things to avoid too harsh sentences for those who can most likely rehabilitate; and avoid too lenient a sentence for those who likely won’t. I’m not here to debate wether that law works the way they advertise it- but it’s important to understand the spirit of those laws because the major difference in how an officer is treated comes into play when serious injury or a weapon is used and a strike is given to the offender. As a violent felony that act carries a minimum 25 year sentence IF it is their 3rd strike. Personally- if you injure or kill a police dog trying to escape a crime (why else would you...?) and you’ve committed 2 offenses worthy of a strike already- you are dangerously stupid. You have failed to learn a simple lesson. You have shown a willful desire to commit...
... serious crimes and avoid punishment and you will do harm to get out of it. You may think you have nothing to lose. If you don’t kill the dog and get away you get caught for whatever crime you were doing. If you succeed you get off Scott free and can continue to commit crimes. We don’t want that. We want people who commit crimes to go to jail. If you shoot the dog- that bullet could hit a cop, a bystander. It’s dangerously stupid in every way. That’s the spirit of the law. You can’t lock people up for being idiots- but you can lock them up for being repeatedly and demonstratively so dumb and so willful to cause harm thaybthey repeatedly endanger others. So I’d say that’s a fair law.
There's an investment of time and money in a K-9 unit so that it can perform a function. This differentiates it from the dog you picked up from the pound so you could tell everyone you "rescued it." As for the deadly force over a dog nonsense - you won't do anything. You'll cry, you'll scream, you'll stomp around, you'll make threats, but you won't actually do anything.
Plenty of people have trained their dogs, sometimes extensively, for many reasons. Many dogs are trained for hunting for example. And these people have put time and money into their dog.
Also, time, money and fuction shouldn't determine a creature's right to live. They just shouldn't. A kid with no useful skills has just as much right to live as a middle aged surgeon. It wouldn't make any sense to say a lawyer has more right to live because a lot of time and money went into training him to perform a function.
I'm not saying that a dog should have the same rights as a human. Obviously the man who shot the dog shouldn't face the same punishment as the man who shot a child. However I think that cops should be expected not to shot a dog without good reason, and should be held accountable if they do.
The differentiation isn’t that there is more training or money or anything else put into police dogs. The differentiation is that police dogs are police officers- so killing one is killing a police officer. Would you rather they were classified as “equipment” and treated like boots or a patrol car instead of intelligent loving creatures acting as law enforcement professionals? Police shootings of dogs SHOULD be handled differently. Policies and practices should be refined and enforced. However the logic that treating a dog as a human makes sense of a K9 is a police officer doesn’t hold up unless your dog has the legal status of a human. If your dog has legal human status you must send it to school. You must treat it exactly as you would a human and be liable for it as you would a child. States like California have taken steps like naming dogs as “members of the family” in divorces. But be mindful that giving dogs “human” legal status has pros but also cons and could change much.
Police dogs shouldn't be a thing, it's animal abuse and it makes me sick that its so normalized and fucking praised in our society. These dogs are trained to attack without any hesitation and sure as shit without any stopping, their handlers have to wear protective clothing and force them off the target otherwise they'll mutilate and kill them because they're trained to bite harder if who they are attacking tries to fight them off, you know, that normal human reaction to being attacked by an animal. If they are lucky enough that they aren't just euthanized once they're too old to damn near kill someone they have to be put in rehabilitation and retaught that not everyone should be mauled for walking away from you. Also I'm just saying, if a cop shoots my dog cause he was being "aggressive" you might as well shoot me too, cause I'm gonna get real fucking aggressive with them too
In the same way that hate crimes are a bigger deal than non hate crimes. It's more illegal to break in the window of a minority for being a minority than it is to break in a window because some guy slept with your wife. But it isn't equivalent to killing a minority because they are a minority because of course it isn't.
Simple battery against an officer: charged as misdemeanor. Sentence of no more than 1 year (without special circumstance- 3 or less years with,) and or a possible fine of $2000. Reasonable for a dog. The fine covers expenses as you would with any property even if we view the dog as just property. If you vandalize a police car- just vandalize. Which includes scratching the paint- less than $400 in damage is a $1000 fine and up to a year in prison. Sentenced as a misdemeanor. More than $400...
Also, time, money and fuction shouldn't determine a creature's right to live. They just shouldn't. A kid with no useful skills has just as much right to live as a middle aged surgeon. It wouldn't make any sense to say a lawyer has more right to live because a lot of time and money went into training him to perform a function.
I'm not saying that a dog should have the same rights as a human. Obviously the man who shot the dog shouldn't face the same punishment as the man who shot a child. However I think that cops should be expected not to shot a dog without good reason, and should be held accountable if they do.