Weighing in on K-9 case

On Thursday the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office released an updated report explaining what happened when Sgt. Lovejoy of the Chandler Police Department abandoned the police canine Bandit in a vehicle, discovering the animal dead of heat and dehydration over 12 hours later.

My take: Sgt. Lovejoy through negligence destroyed approximately ten thousand dollars of government property entrusted to his care and caused an animal to suffer and die in so doing. This is rightly a crime of some kind, worthy of an arrest. Lovejoy may have already "suffered enough" from his mistake in handling Bandit, but arrest was never about visiting suffering upon human beings, it is about recognizing, recording, and responding to reality. The reality is, there was consideration, there was duty, there was negligence, and a police canine died because of it. I'm not saying Lovejoy should spend a single day in jail out of all this, but it's reasonable to presume under the circumstances that Sgt. Lovejoy has committed a crime under these facts and an arrest is justified.

However, a *full custody arrest* was neither customary nor appropriate, and is rightly called out as more grandstanding by Sheriff Joe Arpaio. It is increasingly clear that the Sheriff wields power irresponsibly and capriciously. Power corrupts. I see this as more evidence that it is time for Sheriff Joe Arpaio to step down and someone with less existing wear on his soul to step under the sword of Damocles and serve for a time.

Incidentally, there are a number of extenuating circumstances in this case. The sergeant had a number of demands on his attention and was operating on a reduced amount of rest. This doesn't necessarily excuse the incident -- rather it points to to a totality of circumstance that a prosecutor will need to consider in filing charges, offering plea agreements, or dismissing the case entirely.