- A Facebook video showed a Casaville, CA police officer punching a canine partner in the face.
- The witness said the officer had punched the dog repeatedly before he started filming.
- The Casaville Police Department said in a statement that the dog has been removed from the officer’s home, and that the dog had been “aggressive” before the officer hit it.
- The Department has not released the name of the officer.
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A Vacaville, CA police officer who was filmed punching a canine partner during a training exercise has now had the dog removed from their home, according to a statement released on the Vacaville Police Department’s Facebook page.
The video, recorded by witness Robert Palomino, shows a police office restraining the dog and punching it in the face. In the original Facebook post, now deleted, Palomino wrote that the officer had punched the dog multiple times before he started recording, and stopped after Palomino started filming, according to SF Gate.
The Vacaville Police Department said that the canine has been removed from the care of the police department and was found to have no signs of distress or injury by a veterinarian. The police department also said that the canine will remain with a third party “pending a thorough and complete investigation into the incident.”
The department has not yet named the officer who punched the dog in the video.
The department’s original statement noted that the officer’s punch came after the dog itself became violent.
“Yesterday evening a video surfaced of an interaction between one of our officers and his canine partner during training,” the statement read. “We understand how disturbing the video appears to many who view it and the range of emotions it creates. What the video doesn’t show is the moments prior, when the canine became aggressive towards his handler.”
The post has now received more than 12,000 Facebook comments.
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