PETA Statement re Verdict in Heatstroke Deaths of K-9s in Unventilated Box Truck

For Immediate Release:
December 4, 2025

Contact:
Sara Groves 202-483-7382

Please see the following statement from PETA Senior Vice President Daphna Nachminovitch regarding the “not guilty” verdict in the cruelty-to-animals trial in Lake County Superior Court regarding the heat-related deaths of nine dogs who were being transported inside an unventilated box truck to a K-9 training facility in the summer of 2023:

No amount of deference to the police and its contractors can undo the prolonged suffering these dogs endured, baking to death and desperate to escape cages as their organs shut down in the suffocating heat of an unventilated truck. But the system’s utter failure to hold the dogs’ “owner” accountable in some small way for the hell he put them through serves as another example of why the time is now for law-enforcement agencies to phase out the use of K9s.  

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to abuse in any way”—points out that Every Animal Is Someone and offers free Empathy Kits for people who need a lesson in kindness. For more information, please visit PETA.org or follow PETA on X, Facebook, or Instagram.