Maine State Police will not say if there is a criminal investigation into the death of a state comfort dog who died earlier this week after being left in a vehicle without air conditioning on an 82-degree day.
It’s unclear for how long Baxter, a 3-year-old chocolate labrador retriever, was inside the state vehicle that was not running on Wednesday before he died. Maine Department of Public Safety spokesperson Shannon Moss declined to answer multiple questions Friday.
Moss also would not say if there was a criminal investigation into the dog’s death and if Baxter would have a necropsy, which is an examination to determine the cause of death of an animal.
Baxter’s handler was Brodie Hinckley, the director of Maine Department of Public Safety Communications, Moss said. She would not confirm if Hinckley was the person who left Baxter in the vehicle.
Hinckley did not respond to a request for comment.
While few details have emerged about what led to Baxter’s death, under Maine criminal and civil law it is illegal to confine “an animal in a building, enclosure, car, boat, vehicle or vessel of any kind when extreme heat or extreme cold will be harmful to its health.”
Baxter, a comfort dog for the Maine Bureau of Emergency Communications, was found dead inside a state vehicle around 2 p.m. Wednesday at the Bangor Regional Communications Center.
Bangor hit a high of 82 degrees by 1:50 p.m. Wednesday, according to the National Weather Service.
There were seven civil and nine criminal animal cruelty cases across Penobscot and Piscataquis counties in 2024, according to the district attorney’s office. It’s unclear if any of those cases include an animal being left in a hot car.
Charges are not automatic if a dog or another pet dies in a hot car because there can be nuance to a situation, Penobscot County District Attorney R. Christopher Almy said. However, Baxter’s public status is a factor in a potential case, he said.
Baxter was a frequent star on the Facebook page for public safety communications in the years since he joined staff in April 2023. He worked at the state’s three emergency communication centers to offer support to dispatchers.
In general, prosecuting animal cruelty cases depends on “degree of maliciousness or the degree of carelessness or the degree of bad conditions,” Almy said. One case that sticks out to Almy is a man who had 97 dogs who were not being cared for.
There will be a “thorough inspection” of the vehicle to see what may have caused it to “unexpectedly stop running,” which in turn shut off the air conditioning, Moss said.
