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Travis Daily

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Florida is planning to lay down the law for people who injure or kill dogs or horses that work with police officers and other first responders.

This is good but I wish people would just know not to hurt these animals. Commonsense.

According to Orlando Sentinel, the bill would make it a second-degree felony, up from a third-degree felony, for people who kill or cause great bodily harm to police, fire or search-and-rescue dogs or police horses. The change would boost the amount of potential prison time from five years to 15 years.

Last September, a Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office canine unit was shot and killed by a teenager fleeing after carjacking two women at a gas station. Three months later, a Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Officer’s dog, was shot and killed by an attempted-murder suspect outside of a shopping mall. A Senate staff analysis noted that in 2016 a reveler who had been drinking at the Gasparilla parade in Tampa punched a Sheriff’s horse.

In Florida, 140 police departments and 65 sheriff’s offices used specially-trained canines for purposes such as tracking criminal suspects and detecting drugs and bombs in 2017. Fire departments also use dogs for arson detection.

I am all for these stricter rules and don’t want to see law enforcement and K-9 and horses getting hurt in the line of duty.