Good News for Florida K9s

K9 Baron

We've had two police K9s killed in the line of duty in the past four years. It's tragic.

In October 2014, K9 Baron was drowned by the POS felon he was pursuing in a neighboring county. The bad guy was eventually found and arrested. He was sentenced to 10 years for a cocaine charge, and five for killing the dog. The sentences are being served concurrently so essentially he got a free pass on Baron's murder.

K9 Fang

Two months ago, K9 Fang was shot in the head while pursuing a 17-year-old carjacker. The good news is that this POS will be tried as an adult. The bad news is that the sentence he gets for armed robbery will undoubtedly overshadow whatever he gets for murdering Fang.

Why? Because Florida law says that killing a police dog is only a 3rd degree felony, carrying a maximum sentence of 5 years in prison. FIVE. STINKING. YEARS. I've had car loans longer than that! These beautiful, loyal, wonderful German shepherds sacrificed their lives and their murders get five lousy years in jail. Can you taste the bile?

After Fang's death the public cried "Enough!" There were online petitions, public rallies and lots of scathing FB posts. (BTW, I'm not sorry about those.) I can hear you now: "Kelley, this is horrible! Why did you title this post Good News for Florida K9s?"

This morning it was announced that a State senator filed a bill to increase the crime to a 2nd degree felony, tripling the prison time. This is a little less than the public execution that some of us were calling for, but it's definitely a step in the right direction.

BTW, the senator doing this Aaron Bean, representing my area. I sent him an email thanking him for supporting police K9s. I also said the following:

I read the verbiage for the Fang Memorial Bill. Just curious as to why you are changing "dog" to "canine"? It sounds pretentious. However, if you're going to do that, then why not change "horse" to "equine"? It would be more plausible for the government to utilize multiple members of the equine genus (i.e. horses, mules, donkeys) than of the canine genius (dogs, wolves, coyotes).

Am I wrong?

Anyway, if you live in Florida, I'm begging you to contact your state senator and ask him/her to support this bill. Don't know who your senator is? No problem! Click here and type in your address. You can send your senator an email from there! Please, take five minutes to make a difference for police K9s. Thanks, -- K