BARTON HALL—Accused of omitting key details from Jane Doe’s testimony in the report they provided to the Tompkins County District Attorney, the Cornell University Police Department told the press Friday morning that parts of the document had simply been consumed by one of the force’s K-9 units.
On November 25, 2024, CUPD supplied the DA’s office with a record of information collected in an interview with Jane Doe. Documents obtained by the New York Times, however, suggest that explicit accusations of rape visible in the transcript of this interview did not appear in the record, a discrepancy CUPD alleged was “the dog’s fault”.
“Right when I was about to bring the report to the DA, he totally jumped up and grabbed it, like, right out of my hand! Honest!” said CUPD Officer Paul Robinson. “There were even more pages, like 3 more pages, and he gobbled them all up, and he chewed on them and ate them. And I didn’t notice ‘til after.”
Officer Robinson lowered his head and furrowed his eyebrows, adding “I’m telling the truth, promise. Ask the Sergeant. He saw.”
A CUPD spokesperson called the purported incident “regrettable”, but pleaded with the public not to blame the rest of the department for the actions of “one bad dog”.
At press time, the supposedly guilty canine—a one-and-a-half-year-old Belgian Malinois named Rusty—had been placed on paid suspension.
