SAN DIEGO
A San Diego police officer who was charged yesterday in the death of his canine partner is unlikely to lose his job but could face disciplinary action pending an internal investigation, San Diego police Chief William Lansdowne said.
The Police Department launched the investigation yesterday after the District Attorney's Office decided to charge Officer Paul Hubka with one misdemeanor count of animal endangerment. If convicted, he could face up to six months in jail, a fine and be ordered to pay restitution.
A necropsy performed on Forrest, a 5 year-old Belgian Malinois, found that the animal died of heatstroke on June 20 at the officer's home in Alpine.
Hubka, a 22-year veteran of the department, is accused of leaving the dog in the police cruiser with the windows rolled up on a day when temperatures in East County exceeded 100 degrees.
“There's no one who feels worse than he does,” Lansdowne said yesterday. “It's very clear that he lost a partner he was attached to, and he knows it was his fault, and he takes absolute responsibility.”
Michael Conger, an attorney who represented Hubka in an unrelated labor lawsuit but not in this case, said the officer had worked a double shift and was exhausted when he got home.
“He's a very solid, good person that made a very bad mistake,” Conger said.
The chief said he will decide on any discipline to administer in the case when the internal investigation is completed in two to three weeks. Hubka is assigned to administrative duties in the meantime.
“I do not see this as a termination case,” Lansdowne said. “I believe it was a mistake.”
In an effort to prevent similar tragedies in the future, the department announced yesterday that it plans to buy heat-alert systems for its fleet of 53 police dog cars similar to those used in other hot-temperature cities such as Dallas, Las Vegas and Phoenix.
When the back seat of the patrol car reaches a certain temperature, the system will automatically lower the car's windows, switch on the air conditioning and sound an alarm. The technology will cost about $36,000 total.
In 2006, a state law was enacted making it a misdemeanor for a person to leave a dog unattended in a vehicle causing great bodily injury or death. Only intentional animal cruelty is a felony.
Hubka's attorney could not be reached yesterday afternoon.
Carlsbad resident Janis Musante was one of several in the county who expressed outrage at Forrest's death.
“I think he needs to be held accountable and shouldn't be given any preferential treatment because he's a police officer,” said Musante, a retired San Francisco lawyer who is married to a retired police officer. “It was absolutely justified charging him.”
She also applauded City Attorney Michael Aguirre for filing a lawsuit against Hubka seeking to recover the cost of replacing the police dog.
Hubka is the third law enforcement officer in the county to be charged with a crime in the past three weeks.
San Diego police Officer Frank White faces two charges for his role in an off-duty shooting and road rage incident in Oceanside, and San Diego County sheriff's Detective Thomas Sadler faces five felony charges stemming from accusations that he molested a prostitute while on duty.
Sadler and Hubka are set to be arraigned Aug. 28 before the same judge.
Also yesterday, an officer whose police dog died after being left in a patrol car for 13 hours last summer in suburban Phoenix was acquitted of animal cruelty.
Chandler, Ariz., police Sgt. Tom Lovejoy was negligent, but prosecutors did not prove he acted recklessly, a justice of the peace ruled. Lovejoy could have been jailed for six months if he had been convicted of the misdemeanor count.
Lovejoy testified that on the morning of Aug. 11, 2007, after working an overnight shift, he parked his police SUV in his driveway and went inside. He said he was exhausted and forgot the Belgian Malinois was sleeping in the back.
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