The Associated Press
CINCINNATI (AP) - City lawyers have canceled filming of the city’s police dogs and handlers for an upcoming television special only months after a dispute over plans to allow the TV show “Cops” to ride with Cincinnati police officers and film them.
The decision not to allow the city’s K-9 unit to be featured on an upcoming Animal Planet special upset the police dogs’ handlers, who viewed it as another example of officials not being proud of their officers, said Sgt. Harry Roberts, president of Cincinnati’s Fraternal Order of Police.
Cincinnati’s police dogs and handlers, who have been under scrutiny for three years by the U.S. Department of Justice as part of a federal review of Cincinnati police procedures, were judged the best team in the nation last year at the U.S. Police Canine Association’s national trials.
“They wanted to showcase what they do,” said Roberts. “We all do.”
City officials said the decision not to allow filming of the K-9 unit for the special on award-winning law-enforcement dogs was not meant as a slight against the unit. They said they wanted to protect police from possibly being filmed during a situation, such as a dog biting a suspect.
City lawyers canceled the filming when they couldn’t agree on legal language, including “what they would do with unused footage,” city spokeswoman Meg Olberding said.
The legal decision came five months after police Chief Tom Streicher had to rescind an invitation to the Fox TV show “Cops” to ride with officers and film them. The chief withdrew the invitation after some council members said they were concerned whether nationally televised images of officers arresting people on the streets could aggravate tensions that have lingered between police and some members of the black community since the 2001 riots.
Streicher later was allowed to extend the invitation to the TV show again after an outpouring of public support for the filming.