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Central Fla. Police Dog Dies When A/C Fails

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Jul 22, 2008 9:03 am US/Eastern

Central Fla. Police Dog Dies When A/C Fails

MULBERRY (CBS4) ― Members of a Polk County police department are mourning the loss of a police dog.

A 2-year old German Shepherd named Sam Diesel, a police dog on the Mulberry Police Department, died after being left in a patrol car in which the car's air conditioning compressor failed. Mulberry is east of Tampa.

Officials say Sam Diesel was in the 2004 Crown Victoria cruiser for about an hour Monday. The dog's partner and handler, Sara Movahedi, was inside the police station and had left the vehicle running, which is standard procedure.

It's unclear when the air conditioning failed. The car was awaiting installation of a heat alarm. A heat alarm, triggered when the temperature inside the car reaches a certain level, sounds the car's horn and sends a page to the officer's electronic pager.

The Mulberry department purchased the dog in October after Wal-Mart employees from 10 stores in Polk and Hillsborough counties donated about $12,625.

Mulberry Police Chief Lawrence Cavallaro said Movahedi was not at fault in the dog's death.

(© 2009 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)

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