First-time offenders now face a 5-year prison term for killing a police dog in Kansas.IMAGE: Pexels
The Kansas Legislature has passed a bill criminalizing the killing of police dogs and horses, reported MSN.com.
The legislation known as Bane's Law was approved by a vote of 107-4. It now heads to the state Senate, where it is expected to pass, the article reported.
The legislation authorizes judges to impose a five-year prison term on first-time offenders who kill a police, arson, game warden, or search-and-rescue dog, or a police horse, and mandates a fine of at least $10,000, the report noted.
MSN.com reported killing dogs is already a felony in Kansas, but the maximum prison sentence is one year, the maximum fine is $5,000, and the law does not cover horses.
House Speaker Dan Hawkins and Rep. Stephen Owens, chair of the House Corrections and Juvenile Justice Committee, sponsored the bill in response to the death of Bane, an 8-year-old K-9 employed by the Sedgwick County Sheriff’s Office in Wichita. Law enforcement reports show a suspect in a domestic violence incident hid in a storm drain and fatally strangled Bane, the police K-9 deployed to find the suspect.
According to an article in The Washington Post, the federal government and some states already allow longer prison sentences than Kansas. A federal law passed in 2000 allows a prison sentence of up to 10 years for killing a police dog. The potential penalty in Florida for the same crime rose from a maximum of five years to a maximum of 15 years in 2019.
