Memorial service held Friday for HPD K-9 who died from heat exhaustion

HOUSTON – The Houston Police Department gave a final farewell to HPD K-9 Officer Aron, who died Monday due to heat exhaustion.

Houston Police Chief Troy Finner and HPD commanders and officers honored the fallen K-9 in a memorial service. The service was held near the reflection pond area at the Houston Police Academy L.D. Morrison Sr. Memorial Center at 17000 Aldine Westfield Road at 8:30 a.m.

Aron’s handler, a sergeant with the department, had taken three of his dogs to a training facility near Hobby Airport to run them through some drills, according to a previous report.

He took two of the dogs with him inside the building but left Aron in the back of his patrol vehicle. It is not known how long the animal had been left alone.

A statement released by HPD explained that the sergeant left the car on with the air conditioning running, but when he returned, the vehicle had turned off and Aron was in distress. He was rushed to a veterinarian but succumbed to heat exhaustion.

HPD explained that it is not uncommon to leave dogs alone in vehicles and there are multiple fail safes in place to prevent such tragedies from occurring.

They released a statement that read, in part:

“HPD K-9 vehicles are equipped with a system that notifies the handler, sounds the horn, activates cooling fans, and rolls down the care windows, if for some reason the vehicle shuts down. This did not happen in this instance. HPD is investigating the tragedy to determine what went wrong and to prevent this from happening in the future. All HPD vehicles that transport K-9s will immediately be inspected by the vendor to ensure the systems are working properly.

“Please keep Aron’s handler and the entire K-9 team in your prayers as they mourn the loss of Aron.”

They later released a video in memory of the police K9 on Twitter.

Officer Aron was 4 years old and had been with HPD for one and a half years.