Man Jailed Under New Law After Stabbing Police Dog In The Head

While we could argue that early humans had a lot of advantages that got us where we are today, our resourcefulness definitely had a lot to do with our survival.

Not only where we one of the few creatures that could use tools to our advantage, but we also figured out how to train animals to help us in our daily lives. And although we’ve seen graduated to letting machines do a lot of our work, that’s not to say we don’t still make use of some furry friends to get things done.

Unfortunately, this can mean exposing animals to some dangerous work, but one U.K, law seeks to address some of that danger.

When police responded to a public disturbance in Stoke-on-Trent, England, 29-year-old Daniel O’Sullivan (not pictured) showed some worrying behavior.

As the BBC reported , O’Sullivan was seen bouncing up and down and stabbing the air with a knife.

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By the time police arrived, he had also added a glass bottle to his arsenal.

When officers told him to drop the knife, he instead threw the bottle at them.

This prompted an officer named Karl Mander to release a police dog named Audi, but O’Sullivan soon responding by stabbing the dog near the eye.

O’Sullivan was about to stab Audi again before he was tasered by other officers on the scene.

In the struggle that led to his arrest, O’Sullivan also kicked an officer in the head and loudly threatened to stab Mander.

Judge Paul Glenn would later call the attack on Audi “gratuitous” and “plainly premeditated.”

O’Sullivan would later go on to act aggressively towards hospital staff when he was admitted for treatment.

Authorities would later discover that this partially had to do with the fact that he had taken cocaine and a synthetic drug called “monkey dust” before the incident.

O’Sullivan would plea guilty to five counts of assaulting police officers and two counts of possessing offensive weapons.

He did not, however, agree with one count of affray, which involves disturbing the peace by fighting in a public place.

In addition to these charges, O’Sullivan was on the hook for violating Finn’s Law.

According to the BBC , this law is officially called the Animal Welfare (Service Animals) Act and was enacted after a police dog named Finn was stabbed under similar circumstances.

This law makes it difficult for people to claim they acted in self-defense when attacking a service animal and attacks on police dogs are no longer simply treated as “criminal damage.”

In total, O’Sullivan was sentenced to 21 months in jail.

As for Audi, he was lucky enough not to be blinded or receive “any lasting damage.”

Staffordshire Police said he has since “recovered well” and returned to work after “lots of rest and TLC.”

h/t: BBC