John Jefferson
Savannah, Missouri, police K9 Horus (Savannah Police Department).
Prosecutors in Missouri charged a police officer with misdemeanor animal abuse for allegedly leaving his K-9, Horus, in his scorching cruiser after an overnight shift.
The Missouri Attorney General’s Office filed the charges against Savannah police Lt. Daniel Zeigler on Friday, records show. A probable cause arrest affidavit says Zeigler and Horus completed their overnight shift shortly before 5 a.m. on June 20. Zeigler called Savannah police Chief David Vincent shortly before 6 p.m. to tell him Horus had died of heat exposure, authorities said. Prosecutors noted the high temperature that day reached 88 degrees.
A neighbor told police that he saw Horus’ body out by the cruiser that evening and heard Zeigler “flipping out” and yelling in “disbelief” that he “thought he had brought the K-9 in at the end of his shift.” The neighbor also described hearing Zeigler take responsibility for Horus’ death while talking to Vincent at the burial.
Zeigler’s cruiser was retrofitted with an AceK9 system. It is designed to activate a fan inside the vehicle, roll down the windows and honk repeatedly if the temperature in the car reaches 90 degrees. About a week after the incident, Missouri State Police troopers conducted a test on the system, showing it worked, the affidavit said.
“This test demonstrated the AceK9 system inside the Savannah Police K-9 vehicle was in working order and would have had to been manually turned off/deactivated on June 20, 2024,” prosecutors wrote. “The deactivation of the AceK9 system directly contributed to the death of K-9 Horus by removing a safeguard to prevent such an incident.”
Zeigler faces up to a year in jail and a $2,000 fine.
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As Law&Crime previously reported, at 90 degrees outside, a car could become as hot as 135 degrees inside after in an hour, the American Veterinary Medical Association estimates.
Horus, a full-breed German shepherd, joined the department in February 2021 when he was 2 years old, the agency said in a Facebook post at the time. He and his handler trained for eight weeks and started patrolling in May 2021, the department said. Commenters have taken to the post announcing Horus’s arrival to the department to express their outrage.
“The Savannah Police Department, and the entire community suffered a tremendous loss,” Vincent said in a statement emailed to Law&Crime. “K9 Horus passed away after completing an overnight shift on patrol in Savannah.”
With the AG’s office charging misdemeanor animal abuse, Zeigler will skirt a recently-signed law that imposes stiffer penalties for offenders who kill a police dog.
The Missouri Legislature this year approved a bill that would increase penalties for injuring or killing a police dog. The bill makes it a class D felony — up to seven years in prison and a $10,000 fine — for killing a K-9. Gov. Mike Parson signed the bill into law in July.
“Under current law, right now, it’s actually a more serious crime to break the window out of a police car, which is admittedly a serious crime,” bill sponsor Sen. Tony Luetkemeyer told Missourinet. “That has a stiffer penalty associated with it than killing a law enforcement K9. So, that, to me, just doesn’t seem right.”
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