K-9 Officer Stabbed; Suspect Escaped
Press release from the Trinity County Sheriff’s Department:
On Thursday, July 14, 2016 at approximately 7:00am Trinity County Sheriff’s Dispatch was notified by a Trinity County Sheriff Deputy working with Campaign Against Marijuana Planting (CAMP) in a remote undisclosed location eradicating marijuana that K9 Officer Johnny had been stabbed and needed medical attention.
K9 Johnny had entered the marijuana grow with his handler when multiple suspects started to flee the area. Johnny was able to apprehend one suspect who Officers detained and then went after the second suspect who was carrying a 10 inch knife and pistol. The second suspect stabbed K9 Johnny in the left side of his neck with the 10 inch knife and fled into the woods.
Officers recovered the knife and pistol but were not able to locate the second suspect. The first suspect was identified as Clemente Lopez, DOB: 2/23/84 from Mexico.
The California Highway Patrol helicopter was able to pick up K9 Johnny and his handler and transported them to the Weaverville Airport where there they were transported to a local animal hospital. K9 Johnny is stable and suffered a severe laceration to the left side of his neck. We will keep you updated on K9 Johnny’s prognosis.
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Sending prayers for K9 Johnny! They are officers too!
K9Johnny, truly doing his job… Ear-scrichings all around! af
Cop Dog’s Lives Matter too <3
Well, that just put a target on the backs of Mexicans in that area. Hope the dog is OK.
no, in our current climate of anti-cop-racism, or whatever the heck you’d call it the cops will not be allowed to speak to any mexican or vaguely brown-skinned persons because that would be racist profiling.probably already back in mexico or at least san diego.
Pussy cops sending the dog.
No protective gear.
Should be illegal. And dickheads around the world don’t want shamu but yet send dogs in to get hurt
What a bunch of dumbasses
You seemed to have missed this part of the story: “K9 Johnny had entered the marijuana grow *with his handler* when multiple suspects started to flee the area.”
I have to say that if a dog were chewing on my arm, and if you haven’t seen this in action it’s pretty vicious, I’d stab it in the head as well. People have lost limbs in police dog attacks. They don’t stop until pulled off. The dogs are used to put fear into people, and turned loose whether needed or not and they immediately attack. It sucks this dog got hurt, but I’d blame the handler. If you run, the “handler” becomes judge, jury and executioner and let’s the dog get a little skin for the fun of it. If you see a police dog coming at you full tilt, veins it its teeth, with a smiling dickhead standing back holding the empty leash, what do you do? He’s going to bite you no matter what. Fight or flee? It’s human nature to run from a vicious animal, or try to protect yourself, right or wrong, and the purpose this dog was turned lose was to viciously pin anyone fleeing. Flee you get bit, fight you get bit. But the cops have a good time with it.
Unless one is defusing a bomb, I don’t believe ANY officers wear protective NECK gear.
@sean – jesus you must special. the dog wasn’t by itself and it’s pretty standard for police to send K-9s after people. Why? because they can run far faster then a human, smell better then a human, and the two of those things make them at times BETTER at locating someone/ a suspect who is hiding or running. Sad the dog got stabbed but it was doing what it was trained to do.
Suspects should not be savaged by dogs, this is not Nazi Germany!
[edit] cops sending dogs. Sorry it’s a [edit] move.
Dogs are sent in naked while officers where tons of protection including weapons.
I didn’t miss that part of the story btw
People need to stand up for animals rights. Wtf.
Can’t have shamu but can have unprotected dogs going in danger??
What happened…One of these dogs bite you in the Ass? [edit]
This is no different than if it were a cop. Same amount of time for K9 cops. Hope they find him and put him under the jail. Praying that Johnny is OK and can go back to work.
True. The dog prolly gets more training then what we demand of the human police officers. Did y’all hear about the poor girl and her family getting pulled over and guns drawn in fortuna cuz the cop didn’t read the license plate right and thought her car was stolen?
Murder or attempted murder is a crime against human life. Police dogs or horses are considered police tools and not a person. While there are enhancements for interfering with these animals, they do not carry the same sanctions as with humans. I am very fond of dogs and wish there were greater punishments for these heinous acts
The dog is with CAMP, not police.
“Campaign Against Marijuana Planting (CAMP) is a multi-agency law enforcement task force managed by the California Bureau of Narcotic Enforcement and composed of local, state and federal agencies organized expressly to eradicate illegal cannabis cultivation and trafficking in California.”
What is your point that you are making about the dog being a CAMP dog as CAMP is comprised of law enforcement agencies?
Cops can understand what they are involved in, dogs cannot understand the war on drugs and make choice to participate.
Un pero bueno
Nooooo!!
I hope they catch that scum bag! And charge him with attemted murder!
If they do it will be ‘attempted murder of a peace officer’ and he will be looking at the same amount of jail time that he would be if he would have stabbed a cop in the neck.
…except the dog is with CAMP, not police.
Ya’ll have a scumbag problem up there.
I thought it would be smart to start a fund for protective gear
I’m a law abiding citizen, I don’t drink or use drugs anymore, but I can’t get over how badly I hate police dogs. I know, it’s a problem and maybe I shouldn’t hate them. It’s just they are so abused and misused. The police always say “the dog indicated drugs so we searched”. It’s always an option for a warrantless search. The dogs are scary and intimidating too. They have a police dog in the Del Norte County High School. I think it’s pretty f’ed up the kids have to grow up under stress and intimidation by the dogs presence. The dogs are trained to detain you and will bite! We’ve all seen the training video on tv where the dog latches onto a humans arm to take them down. If my dog did that to a police man, it would be shot dead. But if I harm a police dog, it’s prison time. They *are* wild animals and people have natural instincts to defend themselves against attacking animals. I feel nothing for the injured dog. I’m a super nice guy though! It’s just police dogs bug the hell out of me.
Agree.
You don’t understand! This dangerous criminal was trying to grow FLOWERS!
Yep. Feels like a little bit of Nazi creeping in
Agreed. I will never be in a situation where a police dog might find drugs in my car or will be used to savagely attack me, but I strongly oppose the practice.
I hope K9 Johnny is OK!
#cannabis
Johnny is a TCSO canine not CAMP
Kym. Once again please hash tag cannabis. You only seem to tag cannabis when it’s something positive and not the overwhelming amount of crime surrounding cannabis.
The crime is due to prohibition.
The real crime IS prohibition. And using poor little doggies as weapons.
Working man, I don’t know if you look at the actual website. But if you do, you’ll see that it is split into sections. The cannabis section is intended to be a section for folks who are interested in marijuana as a economic and social force. I think you are misunderstanding the point of the tag. It just tells my website to post the story in that section. It isn’t that I am trying to hide something when I don’t tag it with cannabis. It’s just that a story about a wounded dog during the commission of a crime (albeit a marijuana related one) fits more in the crime section than in a social/economic section. Sometimes stories about crimes involving cannabis are of interest to those readers but in this case, I didn’t think it fit the overall point of the section. It’s as if I had a section on sewing and someone stabbed someone while sewing and you want it to go in the sewing section…Not every story that has marijuana in it, will be posted to the cannabis section.
Sad thing that CAMP AND CANNABIS ERADICATORS are so set on these “surprise busts” where they try to surprise armed growers rather than alert the growers with coptors so there is no confrontation…. These busts are aimed at confronting cannabis farmers which is why Mendocino and Humboldt are seeing a rise in Cannabis Farmers being shot by law enforcement or VICE VERSA, NO PUN INTENDED… a bad for farmers and everybody else including law enforcement. How many cannabis farmers wil be shot this year by these clandestine military style raids when they could easily alert the farmers and ensure the safety of everyone involved? Why such an interest in “capturing guerila farmers” rather than wnsuring there are no onjuries and no deaths by avoiding confrontation? This eradication could have easily been performed without any injuries to farmers, law enforcement or k9 officers. As a county Mendo and Humboldt both need to realize these clandestine military eradication techniques endanger the lives of farmers officers and our entire community, No More Officer or Farmer deaths, these deaths and operations are far worse than any amount of cannabis growing in the forest. Tome to reform these sneaky dangerous law enfoecemenr eradication techniques for the safty of our community.
The growers attempt to escape arrest resulted in the dog getting stabbed, The dog could of died from this stabbing, The more important fact is , Would the criminal stab a human police officer to avoid arrest ? I believe he would have. as this was a knee jerk reaction to a crime. The criminal had no malice towards the dog, but stabbed the dog anyways. So I believe he would have stabbed the human also. Because he is a violent criminal, which one of us, being in the same position would stab a dog ?
No they would not have stabbed a human police officer. A human police officer would not savagely attack a suspect, possible causing them to lose a limb. IF a human police officer did act that way, they would deserve to be stabbed.
I think the real answer here is; “End the war on drugs.” Then we won’t have to put dogs or gardeners in this position.
Any update on how the pooch is doing?
Here’s the latest: https://kymkemp.com/2016/07/15/k-9-johnny-expected-to-make-a-full-recovery/