A Deeper Look into the Death of Reefer the Drug Dog
And how the Chelan County Sheriff's Office tried to cover up who killed him
Trigger warning: This post contains sensitive details about a service animal's death.
Near midnight on March 9, 2016, in Chelan, Wa. Chelan County Sheriff’s Deputy Rob Huddleston got a call from a distraught Detective Carlos Rodriguez on the sheriff’s office tactical channel. Rodriguez asked Huddleston to meet him at the storage units on the north end of town. When Huddleston asked for more specifics, there was radio silence.
According to his report, Huddleston went to the storage units near Shop Road and State Route 150 and found Rodriguez’s vehicle parked on the eastbound side of the road facing westbound.
“As I approached, I noticed he was standing outside his vehicle behind an object that was in the westbound lane. It was raining heavy and the area was dark,” Huddleston wrote. “I approached Detective Rodriguez and noticed that the object in the road was a dog. When I got out of my vehicle I could see it was his patrol dog Reefer. A large pool of blood had formed around Reefers head as he lay motionless.”
Rodriguez told him that he had let Reefer out to “run around and burn some energy.”
“He then drove away so Reefer could run behind the vehicle, when he felt a bump,” Huddleston wrote. “Detective Rodriguez stepped away from his vehicle and found Reefer in the road. It was apparent that Reefer had been ran over by his vehicle.”
Rodriguez told Huddleston he had not noticed Reefer in front of the vehicle and that he was “visibly upset.”
Huddleston called his supervisors, and it was decided that Rodriguez should take the rest of the shift off due to his emotional state. Huddleston then took photos of the scene. Later, he and Sergeant Chris Foreman “put Reefer in two Hazmat suits and wrapped him in a blanket.”
“Detective Rodriguez stated he would be fine taking him home for the night and could transport him to Columbia Pet Services in the morning,” Huddleston wrote. “Reefer was placed in Detective Rodriguez’s vehicle and they left the scene.”
Hiding The Truth
After Reefer’s death, the Chelan County Sheriff’s Office, more specifically Undersheriff Jason Mathews, was less than forthright about the incident to Wenatchee World reporter Dee Riggs.
“In stories published March 10 and 17, Mathews said the dog was hit by an SUV on Shop Road near Chelan after Rodriguez had let the dog out to relieve itself,” she wrote. “Mathews declined to say why, in past conversations with The Wenatchee World, he did not state that Rodriguez was driving the car that hit the dog.”
The record wouldn’t be corrected, and the public wouldn’t be informed about what happened until March 30.
The fact that the Sheriff’s Office had not been honest about the incident with the public was not lost on some Chelan County citizens.
On April 5, 2016, a man named Kelly McNair emailed Sheriff Brian Burnett and Chelan County Commissioners Keith Goehner and Doug England about the situation.
The title of his email was “misleading the public.”
“From the news reports in both the Wenatchee World and KPQ, it would seem that the Undersheriff has intentionally misled the citizens of Chelan County about the circumstances behind the death of Reefer,” he wrote. “If true and the Undersheriff did in fact withhold information for the purpose of protecting the Sheriff Dept. and not the protection of the citizen of the county, he has betrayed the trust of the people he serves. Trust in our local government, including the Sheriffs Dept., is necessary for the safety and security for all of us living in Chelan County.”
The Internal Conversation
Undersheriff Jason Mathews emailed Sheriff Brian Burnett about the situation before he went on vacation.
“Brian,
I did not call KPQ back about Reefer because they want driver info and I don’t want to give them Carlos’ name. Don’t be surprised to get a call from Dee Riggs on Monday, because she wants more info too and I would only give her what she put in the paper,” Mathews wrote. “I did call Steve, Cashmere Valley Bank President, back and left a message after he called me. CA. Bank wants to donate money for a new drug dog. He’s going to call me later today or tonight sometime.”
Several leading Chelan County citizens came forward to help raise funds to replace Reefer. In a fundraising email, former Deputy and K9 handler Aaron Shepard said each dog “costs up to $20,000 to train and equip a new canine and handler.”
They held two fundraisers at the Tsillian Cellars in Chelan and another at the Jones of Washington Tasting Room at Pybus Public Market in Wenatchee. In addition, Hot Rodzz Espresso hosted a motorcycle rally called “Rally in the Valley” in June 2016 and donated half the proceeds to the CCSO for a new drug dog.
While Shepard organized fundraisers to replace Reefer, other deputies coordinated the creation of a shadow box to hang on a wall of the department to honor the service animal and his career.
In the meantime, Rodriguez was reapplying to be a canine handler. On March 23rd, just 13 days after Reefer’s death, he sent Sergeant Bruce Long an official letter stating he would like a new dog.
“I am writing this letter to express my interest in the Chelan County Sheriff’s K-9 position,” he wrote. “I graduated with my K-9 Reefer and we were certified as a team until his death in March 2016.”
Other team members were more interested in ensuring canine handlers don’t run over their service animals in the future and made suggestions about policy changes in emails about the subject.
“Can we go in a direction of a policy that states, ‘If breaking or exercising your dog do not drive your vehicle along side,’” wrote Deputy Mike Lamon.
The God Squad Protects Its Own
“The God Squad” is the nickname that some deputies within the Chelan County Sheriff’s Office have given to the core group of Burnett sycophants and hardcore Grace City Church followers in the sheriff’s inner circle.
I first came across the term in a series of employee satisfaction surveys I received from the department in response to a public records request. The surveys show a department in turmoil, rife with resentment and in-fighting between the new and the old guard – between those who attend Grace City Church and those who do not.
The survey responses are why Deputy Mike Morrison decided to challenge his boss Brian Burnett for the job of Chelan County Sheriff.
And compared to the way that former Deputy Aaron Shepard was hounded out of the department after leaving Grace City Church and refusing to ostracize his former partner Jennifer Tyler, the difference is stark.
It begs the question: Are policies and rules evenly applied to all CCSO employees, or are members of “The God Squad” given special treatment?
It’s a question I would like to ask Undersheriff Mathews and Sheriff Brian Burnett, but they have not responded to my questions about this matter thus far. Here’s the email with most of the questions I asked both of them this week:
“Hi Sheriff Burnett and Undersheriff Mathews,
I read through the documents I got from PRR from your department earlier this year and had a couple of questions about Reefer the drug dog's death in March 2016.
First, was it standard practice to run canines alongside or behind handler vehicles to exercise them prior to Reefer's death?
According to Huddleston's report, it was raining. Why was Rodriguez exercising Reefer on SR 150 at that time of night when it was raining?
Was Reefer tied to Rodriguez's vehicle or on a leash while Dep. Rodriguez was exercising him?
How did Reefer get run over if he was behind the vehicle?
Did Rodriguez receive any official reprimand or demotion due to the incident?
What was Reefer's estimated cost?
Thank you for your time,”
If I hear back from them, I will update this post with their response.
The last thing I’d like to mention is the fact that I reached out to four current and former law enforcement officers about the practice of running your canine alongside or behind a moving vehicle. None of them had heard of such a thing and all said it sounded like a terrible idea.
One former canine handler had some pretty choice words about the situation, which I won’t print here.
What I will print is this quote from Mike Magnotti:
“I was involved with the WPD K9 program for a good part of my career. I was the agitator for the dogs in training and in K9 demonstrations and for a brief period was the supervisor of the program when we had only one dog,” he wrote. “I’ve never heard of exercising a dog by driving your car and having the dog run alongside, behind or whatever. I also have to seriously question the wisdom of doing this as you’ve described; how the events turned out makes this concern evident.”
If you would like to view selected documents I used as source material for this article, supporting subscribers can get the links to those below the paywall below.