Police dogs are civil servants, Norwegian supreme court rules

0 Comments | AFP, June, 2008

OSLO (AFP) — Police dogs should be considered civil servants and any acts of violence against them therefore merits the same punishment as attacks on human police officers, Norway's Supreme Court ruled Thursday.

"The police officer and dog work ... as a single unit and ... an attack on the dog must be viewed in the same manner as an attack on the officer," the court said in its ruling.

The case dates back to May 19, 2007, when a man breaking into a house in the western town of Bergen was chased down by police dog Vera. Once he was on the ground and was being placed in handcuffs, he struck the German Shepherd.

The man was found guilty of attempted burglary, but was freed in two lower courts on charges that he had attacked a civil servant. Those verdicts were...