Brief by Central Staff
Law enforcement – November 2002 – Colorado Central Magazine
A sheriff’s deputy in Lake County is being charged with animal cruelty as a result of shooting a dog almost a year ago.
It started on Nov. 5, 2001, when the sheriff’s office received a call about a vicious stray dog in a rural subdivision. Deputy Mike Martschinske responded, and he got some help from Jay Turner of the Leadville Police Department, who had a catch pole to assist in capturing the dog.
They took the dog to the county landfill, where Martschinske shot the dog in the head.
But the shot wasn’t fatal. Three days later, a landfill employee found the still-breathing dog, examined its tags and contacted the dog’s owner, Katie Jones, who had been searching for her missing dog — a border collie mix named Cassie.
Cassie lost an eye, and her jaw was shattered. Jones had her treated by a veterinarian, and contacted the sheriff’s department about the shooting, but wasn’t told about Martschinske’s actions. She offered a reward for information, and eventually contacted the district attorney’s office, which launched an investigation.
At the moment, neither Leadville nor Lake County is picking up stray dogs, unless they’re vicious or fighting. That should change sometime next spring, when construction is scheduled to be completed on a new $162,000 county animal shelter.
Martschinske’s boss is Lake County Sheriff Ed Holte, who said the timing of the investigation might be political, since he’s up for election this year. His opponent is George Sheers, who was earlier recalled from the office.
In his original report, Martschinske said the dog he shot was a black chow mix, not a border collie like Cassie. However, the DA’s office says it was able to confirm that Cassie was the dog he shot.
Can a border collie be confused with a chow? We’ve had both, and they don’t look much alike. But when we got our chow-mix puppy in 1989 from the pound at the veterinarian’s office, she was listed as a “collie mix.” So, such confusion has happened before.
