DPS chief takes blame on initial silence in death of K-9 officers

Department of Public Safety Commissioner Anthony Macaranas is taking the blame for not immediately making public the tragic deaths of K-9 officers Beni and Boss after they were left inside a police vehicle that had its air-conditioning unit malfunction last Sept. 8.

“I am taking full responsibility for my action of not notifying the community. But from here on, I will continue to be transparent of what’s been going on with this department,” he said during a media conference last Wednesday at DPS Central in Susupe.

He shared that since the incident, new policies have already been implemented such as K-9 handlers being required to check on their K-9 officers on the vehicles they left them in every 10 minutes.

In regards to the two K-9 handlers of Beni and Boss, Macaranas said should they be sent back as K-9 handlers they will have to go through another training.

“They will continue to go back to training and hone their skills so they can be a handler. In that way, we can also implement the new changes in policies to them so that they can be more effective in caring for the well-being of the K-9 officers.”

Macaranas also said disciplinary actions would’ve been initiated on the two K-9 handlers if DPS found that they neglected Beni and Boss.

“But in this instance, it’s not their neglect that contributed to the death of the dogs. We made a thorough investigation so that way we can cover every avenue. And I assure the community that it was not the handlers’ mishandling of the K-9s that caused their death. It’s mechanical and I will continue to stick to that statement because we found that the vehicle (the A/C unit) failed at a time when it should be working, when those dogs were in the vehicle.”

When asked whether or not DPS plans to get more K-9 officers, Macaranas said there is a plan, but it won’t be done anytime soon.

“Like I said, we need to re-evaluate the program so that way we would not repeat this kind of incident again. That’s the reason why we’re not in a rush. We have two K-9 officers currently that are still working and we’re taking steps so that those K-9 officers are well taken care of and the handlers will continue to be more adaptive to their practices as to taking the well-being of the canine dogs.”

Macaranas said that the hope is that the tragic deaths of Beni and Boss will not be repeated again.

“I’m going to continue taking full responsibility because I know how the program will come about. The program will never be a perfect program. There’s going to be faults, but we’re still going to have to take some sort of responsibility if those faults come about.”