HAWTHORNE POLICE DEPARTMENT
PRESS RELEASE
July 12, 2013
To All the Members of our Community:
As our public safety service demands, we have continued to address critical aspects involving the highly-publicized officer-shooting of a Rottweiler dog ‘Max’. As our City’s intrinsic citizens, you know that this Police Department remain accountable to any and all actions we undertake. Accordingly, that legal work began in the days immediately following the incident and has continued through, customarily. In my efforts to ensure findings are factual and not perceived as biased or premeditated, I have already engaged the following processes:
• I have made [a] request to the Sheriff of Los Angeles County to have his department conduct an administrative investigation into the formal complaint of actions committed by my officers related to the incident in question.
• I have begun assembling a ‘Use of Force’ analysis group focused on how to best deal with animal encounters and threats. In this, early collaboration offerings will include major stakeholders such as ‘spcaLa,’ ‘The Humane Society of the United States’, the Department of Justice’s ‘Community Oriented Policing’ Office and the ‘National Canine Research Council’. Methodologies, prevention and force options will be assessed and implemented to offer both officers and animals alike, safer outcomes.
• Concurrently, our City Attorney’s Office will be forwarding the criminal charge filing related to the dog’s owner to the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office for their separate review and determination.
Continue to be assured that even though this trying and scrutinizing period, our commitment to professionalism, accountability and optimum public safety service remain preeminent.
Robert Fager
Chief of Police