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Officer guilty in death of police dog

BELLEFONTE — Chad Holland, 40, was found guilty of one count of cruelty to animals for the death of K9 Officer Totti. A bench trial was held Wednesday in the case of the dog’s death.

Holland was immediately sentenced to two days in the Centre County Correctional Facility and a $300 fine.

The Centre County district attorney’s office issued the following account of the cruelty incident:

“On July 7 this year, members of the Drug Interdiction Unit (DIU) at the Department of Corrections, housed at SCI Rockview, conducted training exercises with the newest K9 officer, a 2-year-old yellow Labrador retriever named Totti. Staff at the DIU, including Sgt. Holland, who served as an assistant K9 trainer for nine years, reported that they decided to begin Totti’s narcotics detection training early in the morning that particular day to avoid the hot summer temperatures in the forecast.

Upon returning to the DIU office around noon, Holland turned the vehicle off and first unloaded narcotic training aids from the parked vehicle, leaving Totti inside with the windows and doors closed rather than securing him in his kennel 10 feet away. In the course of unloading the vehicle, Holland took a short phone call and walked into a building away from his vehicle. He began talking with another colleague and never returned to remove Totti from the vehicle. Three hours passed as the temperature outside soared to 85 degrees. When he finally returned to the vehicle at the end of his shift, he discovered Totti unresponsive in the rear passenger compartment. Although members of the DIU immediately applied ice and rushed him to a veterinary clinic, Totti never regained consciousness and died five hours later after a seizure related to hyperthermia-induced brain swelling.”

After a joint investigation by both the Department of Corrections and the Pennsylvania State Police, Holland was charged with one summary count of cruelty to animals, which resulted in his conviction Wednesday before the Hon. Kelley Gillette-Walker.

The D.A.’s office urges the public to be aware of the dangers associated with leaving their pets in enclosed vehicles even for short periods of time, especially in extreme outdoor temperatures.

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