A “beloved” police K-9 overheated and died after being left in an officer’s patrol car, police in Georgia say.
K-9 Chase was found unresponsive around 2 p.m. Monday, June 5, when his handler returned from active shooter training at Allatoona High School in Acworth, according to the Cobb County Police Department.
Investigators said officers started training at 11 a.m. but took 15-minute breaks to check on their K-9s after each 45-minute session, police said in a June 6 news release posted on Facebook.
After one of the checks, the air conditioning in the patrol car where K-9 Chase was being held stopped working, and “other safety systems did not properly activate” as the temperature inside grew hotter, according to the release.
K-9 Chase was rushed to a veterinarian clinic nearby but died, police said.
“The efforts were not enough to save him, and he succumbed to his heat-related injuries,” police said. “K9 Chase was a beloved officer of the Cobb County Police Department and will forever be missed by us all.”
Named after slain Locust Grove Officer Chase Maddox, K-9 Chase joined the department in April 2020, the department wrote on Facebook. He was trained for a variety of police work, including narcotics detection, sniffing out suspects and collecting evidence police said.
A necropsy is planned to determine the K9’s cause of death, and an investigation into the incident has been launched.
“This is a horrible incident and our investigators are continuing to gather information regarding the vehicle system failures that led to this tragedy,” police said.
Acworth is about 30 miles northwest of downtown Atlanta.