K9 killing sentence will come Dec. 12

Ronald Chenette will be sentenced to life Dec. 12 for killing police dog Dakota.

Sentencing for a Brush Prairie man who got his “third strike” for killing police tracking dog Dakota has been set over to Dec. 12.

Ronald J. Chenette, 39, had been scheduled to be sentenced today, but Deputy Prosecutor Scott Jackson is in trial.

Chenette was convicted Nov. 14 in Clark County Superior Court of harming a police dog, a class C felony.

He faces a mandatory sentence of life in prison.

The crime of harming a police dog does not count as a strike under the state’s persistent offender law, but prosecutors filed a firearms enhancement for committing the crime with a gun and that elevated the crime to a strike.

Chenette received his first strike in 1991 and second strike in 2000.

In 1991, Chenette was convicted of second-degree murder in the 1987 death of a drug dealer. In October 2000, three months after he was released from prison, he was arrested in Battle Ground after confronting a woman in Kiwanis Park with a steak knife. According to court documents, he waved the knife at her and said, “I’ll teach you the real meaning of 666.” When he was booked into the jail on a charge of second-degree assault, his parents told a corrections officer that their son had been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia in 1994 while in prison, according to documents.

He was convicted of second-degree assault and sentenced to two years in prison.

On Oct. 23, 2007, Chenette’s friend called 911 and said Chenette was armed and threatening to kill police. Deputies from the Clark County Sheriff’s Office surrounded a wooded area behind Bethel Cemetery while a SWAT team, including dog Dakota from the Vancouver Police Department, went into the woods. Dakota was sent down a steep gully. He found Chenette, bit him and was shot.

Stephanie Rice: 360-735-4549 or stephanie.rice@columbian.com.