Proposal For Treatment of Injured Police Dogs Moves Forward
Hartford— The Public Safety Committee met on Thursday to act on several bills including, S.B. 932 AN ACT CONCERNING POLICE ANIMALS AND DOGS IN VOLUNTEER CANINE SEARCH AND RESCUE TEAMS. The proposal includes a concept from Representative Tony Scott (R-112) regarding police dogs. Scott proposed a bill allowing emergency medical services personnel to provide emergency treatment and transportation to police dogs injured in the line of duty, if there are no individuals in need of emergency treatment or transportation at the time.
The Public Safety Committee held a Public Hearing February 14 on this concept, along with ones to increase the penalty for intentionally injuring a police animal or dog in a volunteer canine search and rescue team, establish a penalty for annoying, teasing, tormenting, or harassing a police animal confined in a motor vehicle, and establish a grant program to provide canine officers with body armor.
A similar law was approved in Massachusetts last year after being proposed by Rep. Steve Xiarhos. Nero’s Law was named for the K9 partner of Yarmouth Police Sgt. Sean Gannon, who was shot and killed in April 2018 while serving a search warrant. Nero was rushed to an animal hospital in a police cruiser while empty ambulances sat at the scene.
The committee took favorable action on the bill, moving it forward to the Senate Floor. The legislature will have until the conclusion of the legislative session to vote on it, which ends on Wednesday, June 7th.