A Florida judge sentenced a teenager to 25 years in prison for fatally shooting a Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office K-9 dog, and other charges.
Jhamal Paskel, 19, previously pleaded guilty to felony charges including killing a police dog, armed carjacking and two counts of kidnapping,
Black Twitter expressed outrage that a Black teenager received prison time for shooting a dog, while Breonna Taylor’s killers still walk free.
According to News4Jax, Paskel carjacked two women on Sept. 20, 2018, and forced one of them to drive as he held her at gunpoint.
The car was equipped with an OnStar system, and police tracked the vehicle to Interstate 10 near Cecil Commerce Parkway.
Paskel bailed out of the car and fled on foot with K-9 Fang in hot pursuit. Officers heard three gunshots and K-9 Fang yelped before collapsing on the ground.
“I heard two gunshots back to back followed by a third. In between two and three, I heard Fang yelp, and soon as I came over the embankment, I kind of saw him coming to rest after falling and being shot,” the dog’s handler Officer Matt Herrera told News4Jax.
According to News4Jax, the Florida Legislature passed a law in 2019 to increase killing a police dog or horse to a second-degree felony and raised the maximum sentence from five years to 15 years.
