New Jersey Police Officer Charged After Leaving K-9s to Die in Patrol Car

A police officer in New Jersey has been charged after leaving his K-9 partners in a patrol car, resulting in their deaths.

According to The New York Times (NYT), the Salem County Prosecutor's Office announced on July 7 (local time) that Sergeant Cody Henderson, 41, of the Salem County Sheriff's Office, has been charged with animal cruelty and other offenses.

Sergeant Henderson served as a K-9 handler, an officer responsible for the care and management of police dogs.

The term K-9 is used to refer to police dogs as it sounds identical to the word canine.

According to the Salem County Prosecutor's Office, Sergeant Henderson is accused of leaving the two police dogs he was responsible for in his vehicle for approximately seven hours on May 29, causing them to die.

On the day of the incident, Sergeant Henderson arrived at the Salem County Courthouse around 8:30 a.m. in a Chevrolet Tahoe SUV modified to transport the dogs. He then left the dogs inside the vehicle with the air conditioning off and the windows closed while he attended to his duties.

Sergeant Henderson returned to the SUV at 3:30 p.m. that day, discovered the dogs had died, and transported them to a nearby veterinary clinic in Delaware.

According to the NYT, court documents indicate that when the vehicle was repaired in April, a leak was discovered in the air conditioning system that "required further diagnostic testing."

Prosecutors explained that while the vehicle was equipped with an emergency system designed to alert the handler if the internal temperature became dangerously high—and the system was functional—it appeared to be turned off. Additionally, indoor kennels were available for the dogs to use, but they were not utilized, officials said.

A necropsy of the dogs concluded that they likely died from hyperthermia and heatstroke.

Citing data from the National Weather Service (NWS), the NYT reported that the temperature in Salem on the day of the incident was in the high 60s°F (around 20°C) around 9 a.m. and in the mid-70s°F (around 24°C) by 3 p.m.

The report further explained that even if the outside temperature were 70°F (21°C), if the car were parked in direct sunlight, the internal temperature could reach 113°F (45°C) within an hour.

The deceased police dogs were a four-year-old Belgian Malinois named Rip and a six-year-old Springer Spaniel named Boomer.

Rip had been with the Sheriff's Office since 2023, and Boomer since 2021.

(Photo: Released by Salem County Sheriff's Office, Yonhap News)
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.