Police chief's daughter, 3, mauled to death by ex-drug sniffing dog at family home

A police chief's three-year-old daughter was mauled to death in a horrific attack by a former drug sniffing dog at home. The young girl was attacked by K-9 Draco at her family's house on Monday.

The child was found unresponsive by emergency services who rushed to the property within minutes of the brutal mauling in the small city of Burlington along the Colorado-Kansas border. The girl was the daughter of Burlington Police Chief Nathan Hill - but the police boss was not at home at the time of the horror attack and emergency crews found the girl by her devastated mum.

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The child was tragically pronounced dead at the hospital she was rushed to. The German Shepherd was not actively attacking the three-year-old when authorities arrived at the scene and had been put into a secure kennel, according to the Burlington Police Department.

The animal was then taken to a local dog pound and euthanized. Draco was a single-purpose narcotics detection K-9 for the Cheyenne County Sheriff’s Office but had been donated to the Burlington department after he was "recently taken out of service".

The Burlington sheriff was housing Draco at the time of the attack. Officials have launched a probe into the death but have not said what could have led up to the shocking attack.

Sheriff Travis Beldon said the attack was out of character for the dog, who was not trained in any kind of bite work, according to .

Beldon said: "He's trained for detection. He's not in any way trained for patrol work, apprehension, anything that would involve biting, he's not trained for that kind of stuff. So it is very uncharacteristic for him to attack in this fashion."

He added: "It's an incident that's extremely tragic. It's something that's going to be in the back of everybody's mind for a while."

It is not clear how long Draco had been "out of service" but a previous post by the police department revealed the dog was used to detect drugs during traffic stops as late as June this year.

The K-9, around three years old, was introduced to Cheyenne County Sheriff's Office in September 2023 after he underwent "rigorous" training out-of-state, the cop department said at the time.

Officials have said they do not expect any criminal charges to be filed in this tragic case. The Burlington Police Department said: "This is a very tragic situation, affecting this community as a whole."