GAS CITY, Ind. -- A former Fairmount police officer has been charged after his K-9 died after being left in the officer's police vehicle for around 12 hours after his overnight shift in September 2023.
According to court documents filed in Gas City city court on Thursday, 36-year-old Kyle Vincent was charged with one misdemeanor count of animal cruelty. Vincent had been employed by the department since December 2022 and resigned from his position in September 2023.
On Sept. 10, 2023, Vincent returned home from his overnight shift at around 6 a.m. with his K-9 Zeus. In an interview with Fairmount Police Chief Richard Dollar, Dollar told investigators that Vincent called him around 7:13 p.m. that evening to tell him that Zeus had died in his patrol car.
"(Vincent) discovered his mistake as he was preparing to start his next shift around 6 p.m. on (Sept. 10) and found Zeus deceased in the kennel of the police vehicle," the documents read.
Dollar said that Vincent had changed his story about the incident "several times" but eventually was told that he forgot to remove Zeus from his kennel inside of the patrol car.
The documents said that Vincent first told Dollar that he put Zeus into the vehicle that afternoon at 2 p.m., before his shift started and changed his story to putting Zeus in the vehicle around 12 p.m. and fell asleep during the Indianapolis Colts game.
"When Chief Dollar asked him if he forgot Zeus in the vehicle after his shift Sunday morning, (Vincent) told him that he might have and everything was confusing," the documents read.
The documents said that Vincent gave a verbal resignation to the Fairmount Police Department on Sept. 12, 2023. After the resignation, Vincent gave an interview with investigators.
During the interview, Vincent said that during his shift on Sept. 9, 2023, he had a "mental fog, with a lack of motivation." When Vincent came home after the shift on Sept. 10, he told investigators that Zeus reportedly did not make any noise that morning even though he normally "jumps at the door and gets excited when he pulls into the driveway."
When he discovered Zeus was still in the vehicle and had died, Vincent told investigators that he "fell to the ground and cried for 20 minutes." The documents said that Vincent reportedly told Dollar at that point that he didn't "remember leaving Zeus in the car and that the whole night was a 'fog' due to his depression and PTSD."
When investigators asked about the different stories that Vincent gave Dollar, Vincent reportedly referenced his "mental/memory issues."
"(Vincent said he) was 'so f----- up,' he didn't know why he told them different stories," the documents read. "He said it was stupid and there was no excuse for the untruthful stories."