US police officer charged in hot-car death of police dog

Authorities in Wyoming have charged a police officer with misdemeanor charges in connection with the death of one of the best narcotics dogs in the US state after the dog was locked in a patrol car for hours.
Nyx, a black Labrador died of heat stroke in July after being locked in a patrol car outside a Mills Police Department station for about five hours as temperatures jumped from 11 that morning to at least 30 degree Celsius.
Natrona County investigators have hit Officer Zachary Miller, the dog's handler, with misdemeanor charges of animal cruelty in connection to Nyx's death, according to a Casper Star-Tribune report.

Miller had just returned to the station from an early morning welfare check and left Nyx behind in his squad car at about 5:30 a.M. July 9. The window were rolled up and the doors were locked.
Miller didn not check on Nyx until nearly 1 p.M. When he finished training another officer at the station, a report said.
That was when Miller found the dog dead in the back of the car. The pup, who had been with the agency for about seven years, had succumbed to the scorching heat.

Nyx was the department's first and only police dog.

The air conditioner had never been turned on.
"It was a mistake he's going to have to pay for," Mills Police Chief Bryon Preciado said.
Miller pleaded not guilty in Natrona County Circuit Court on Friday, but was released on a USD 500 bond.
Miller remains employed by the police department, but the agency intends to discipline him, Presciado told the paper.
The four-year veteran of the agency has previously been awarded Officer of the Year, Oil City Wyoming reported.
"He's not a problem officer," Preciado told Oil City Wyoming. "He just screwed up."
If convicted, Miller faces six months in jail or a USD 750 fine.