Handling animals to become part of police training
Updated: February 4, 2013
CHAMPAIGN -- New police training will give officers skills for handling aggressive animals. The changes were sparked by a shooting in November in which an officer killed a family dog.
Currently, officers don't have any formal training when it comes to animals. The Illinois Law Enforcement Standards Board decides what officers need to be trained to handle. The board doesn't require that training.
But, police here want to change that because of the incident in November. The officer responding to the dogs fighting, shot at the dogs to break them up, but one of the animals was killed.
The owner doesn't know if training would have prevented the loss of his pet, but he thinks it's a good first step to move forward. The family says it still has a lot of unanswered questions.
City officials say, hopefully, new training will keep something similar from happening again. Officers will be trained to "read" a dog's body language, and how to deal with an aggressive, vicious animal. No word when training will start.
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Currently, officers don't have any formal training when it comes to animals. The Illinois Law Enforcement Standards Board decides what officers need to be trained to handle. The board doesn't require that training.
But, police here want to change that because of the incident in November. The officer responding to the dogs fighting, shot at the dogs to break them up, but one of the animals was killed.
The owner doesn't know if training would have prevented the loss of his pet, but he thinks it's a good first step to move forward. The family says it still has a lot of unanswered questions.
City officials say, hopefully, new training will keep something similar from happening again. Officers will be trained to "read" a dog's body language, and how to deal with an aggressive, vicious animal. No word when training will start.
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