The Montana Highway Patrol said in a news release on Wednesday, December 4, 2024, that the K-9 dog involved in last week's attack on a man in Laurel had served the MHP for nearly three years as a full-service police utility dog.
K9 Mike’s handler was Sergeant John Metcalfe. At the time of the incident, K9 Mike was in the care of another canine handler, Trooper Luke McKinney.
The news release from the MHP says that on Thursday, November 28, K9 Mike freed himself from his kennel and subsequently attacked a man in a nearby yard; the news release does not provide any specific details about how the dog escaped.
The victim, identified by officials as 51-year old Mark Raty, was taken to a hospital by the Laurel Ambulance Service with serious but not life-threatening wounds; he has since been released from hospital.
One of the witnesses to the attack that lasted for more than 15 minutes was Laurel Fire Chief J.W. Hopper.
"I wasn't sure what was going to happen, because the dog was not stopping," Hopper said Friday.
Hopper said Raty was likely preparing to put up his Christmas lights when he was attacked by the dog.
At the time of the attack, authorities believed it was a neighborhood dog, but it was later identified by Laurel police to be a Belgian Malinois K-9 belonging to the Montana Highway Patrol.
Hopper described the scene as chaotic: "The dog was not giving up. We had an ambulance lieutenant that was assisting also."
Hopper said non-lethal efforts were tried, including using a Taser and also an animal control catch pole, but neither was successful.
An officer eventually hit the dog twice on the head and killed it.
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The Laurel Police Department is conducting a third-party investigation into the incident for the Montana Highway Patrol.
The MHP is also conducting an internal review to ensure a similar situation does not happen again.
“We are thankful to the Laurel Police Department for their assistance in conducting the investigation and to the officer who was forced to make the difficult decision to end K9 Mike’s life Thursday,” MHP Lieutenant Colonel Kyle Hayter said. “Rest assured, our K9’s are highly trained to obey their handler’s commands and do not present a danger to the general public. This was an unfortunate, but isolated, incident. We are currently reviewing our training and procedures to do everything we can to keep it from happening again in the future.”
Mike was a three-year-old Belgian Malinois born in Holland and became part of the MHP in 2022 after completing 300 hours of initial training in western Pennsylvania.
K9 Mike was a full-service police utility dog, trained in the areas of narcotics detection, article search, area search, tracking, and apprehension.
During his career, K9 Mike was deployed 168 times, helped arrest 79 suspects, and assisted in the seizure of 450 fentanyl pills, one pound of fentanyl powder, and nine pounds of methamphetamine.
