Duke, a Belgian Malinois, died in 2006 after collapsing during a training exercise with handler Sgt. Allen Cockfield, according to the Miami Herald. Cockfield is charged with animal cruelty offense is a crime and murder rate police dog. If convicted, he faces possible jail and the loss of its certification a police state. Cockfield argues, any blows he could manage was in self-defense.
"He's just trying to save themselves," said attorney Douglas Hartman.
Authorities arrested Cockfield, 55, in 2007 after a year of investigation, the indoor unit Dades Miami Police Department case. Cockfield spent more than two decades as a dog handler with the department, which he has since been dismissed.
Miami-Dade Prosecutor Isis Perez said yesterday that the jury does not listen to the Duke team during a training exercise, causing Cockfield raise a dog leash him and kicked him three or five times.
He froze his hind legs, trembling, as he goes into a seizure, and a few seconds later, he became numb, and that it was a "fellow police officer who witnessed the incident testified.
Attorney Cockfield in the disputed this account, stating that the dog was behaving aggressively, and his client tried to defend himself.
