Officer Zachary Lee Miller of the Mills Police Department and Officer in training Jake Bigeloware are responsible for K9 Officer Nyx's death on July 9th. Camera footage from the Police department shows the two individuals left the K9 officer in a hot police car for over 6 hours. Upon their arrival back to the car they found Nyx had perished. Officer Miller is being charged with the misdemeanor of not providing a dog with adequate water, food, or protection from the weather. This petition is to increase this charge to a more suitable level for the crime committed. We ask the district attorney of Natrona County to reevaluate the charges with the statute 6-5-211 in mind and be sure proper justice is brought forth for an expensive, loyal asset and officer's death.

6‑5‑211.Injuring or killing a police dog, fire dog, search and rescue dog or police horse prohibited; penalties.

(a)Any person who knowingly, willfully and without lawful cause or justification permanently disables or inflicts death upon any animal defined in subsection (b) of this section shall be liable for restitution by order of a court and shall be guilty of a felony punishable by imprisonment for not more than ten (10) years, a fine of not more than ten thousand dollars ($10,000.00), or both.

(b)As used in this section:

(i)"Police dog" means any dog that is owned, or the service of which is employed, by a law enforcement or corrections agency for the principal purpose of aiding in the detection of criminal activity, enforcement of laws or apprehension of offenders;

While we do not believe officers willingly killed the K9 unit we believe they knowingly left Nyx in a life threatening situation which resulted in his death.