Is It a Crime to Interfere With a Police Dog in Massachusetts?

M.G.L. c. 272, sec. 77A is usually described as the statute against hurting a police dog. It is that, and it is also something less obvious sitting in the same section: a separate offense for willfully interfering, by any action, with the lawful performance of a police dog or horse.

Two offenses in one section

The first is the one people expect. It reaches a person who willfully tortures, torments, beats, kicks, strikes, mutilates, injures, disables or otherwise mistreats a dog or horse owned by a police department or police agency of the commonwealth or of any political subdivision.

The second is the one that surprises readers. Section 77A also reaches willful interference, by any action, with that animal’s lawful performance. Nothing in that clause requires contact with the animal.

Why the interference clause is the real story

A police dog working a track, a search or a scene is performing a task. The statute protects that performance, not just the animal’s body. Because the clause says “by any action,” the conduct it reaches is defined by its effect on the work rather than by whether a hand was laid on the dog.

That is the distinction the video is built on, and it is squarely in the text rather than inferred from it.

Penalty and arrest authority

The section sets a fine of not less than $100 and not more than $500, or imprisonment for not more than two and a half years, or both. It also provides that a sheriff, deputy sheriff or police officer may arrest without a warrant where the offense occurs in his presence.

What this section does not say

Section 77A does not rank this conduct against any other offense in the General Laws, and comparisons of that kind, which circulate widely online, are not supported by the statute’s text. The section stands on what it prohibits and what it penalizes.