A Police Dog Died in a Hot Car, Lieutenant Responsible for Caring for Him Is Charged

Around 6 p.m. on June 20, Lieutenant Daniel R. Zeigler reportedly contacted his Missouri police chief to inform him that his K-9 partner, who had worked an overnight shift with him, was dead.

The Savannah police chief later found that K-9 Horus had allegedly been left inside the police vehicle—equipped with special K-9 safety features that appeared to have been deactivated—since the end of their shift at 4:49 a.m., according to a probable cause statement dated Sept. 5, reviewed by PEOPLE, which cites the Andrew County Dispatch Log. Horus died from heat exposure, which was “directly” linked to the deactivation of the vehicle’s AceK9 system, a safeguard designed to protect him, as detailed in the charging documents.

Lieutenant Zeigler has been charged with one count of misdemeanor animal abuse following an investigation by the Missouri State Highway Patrol, as outlined in the probable cause statement and the officer’s report to the prosecuting attorney.

That evening, a neighbor noticed the deceased police dog near the vehicle and later told investigators that Zeigler was “flipping out,” according to the probable cause statement. The distraught lieutenant was described as “yelling in disbelief,” claiming he “thought he had brought the K-9 in at the end of his shift.”

Later, Chief Dave Vincent arrived at the lieutenant’s home. The nearest weather station, located at Kansas City International Airport, recorded a high of 88 degrees that afternoon, just under 50 miles away from Savannah, Missouri.

Six days later, investigators tested the functionality of the Savannah Police K-9 vehicle used by the lieutenant. During the test, they parked the vehicle outside in direct sunlight with the ignition off. When the internal temperature of the vehicle reached 90 degrees Fahrenheit, the vehicle’s alarm system activated as designed—the horn blared, the rear windows rolled down, and a fan turned on.

“This test demonstrated that the AceK9 system inside the Savannah Police K-9 vehicle was operational and would have had to be manually turned off or deactivated on June 20, 2024,” wrote Highway Patrol Officer Justin S. Johnson in the probable cause statement. “The deactivation of the AceK9 system directly contributed to the death of K-9 Horus by removing a safeguard to prevent such an incident.”

Zeigler, who was a sergeant at the time, had trained with Horus since the nearly 2-year-old German Shepherd joined the force in February 2021. After eight weeks of training, they were scheduled to be “on the streets” by May, according to a Facebook post by the Savannah Police Department announcing the dog’s purchase through community donations.