For several years, a police dog in Bend, Oregon has been known as "Lil Kim." Chief of Police, Mike Krantz, has insisted that the K-9’s name is “Kim,” but uses Lil’ Kim as a nickname "internally" to reference to her “petite size, relative to other K-9s with the force.”
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However, with the rise of protests, civil rights groups have been applying pressure to Bend police to get them to change the dog’s name. While Krantz has “addressed it previously internally,” the Belgian Malinois shepherd has been identified several times as "Lil Kim" in “official department statements,” as recently as February 27, 2021.
Riccardo Waites, founder of the Central Oregon Black Leaders Assembly, stated, “why are you justifying why the dog is called Lil’ Kim, instead of accepting that it’s hurting people in the community?” One of the Assembly’s goals is to create a trusting relationship between the Black community and law enforcement and using a widely popular Black female icon as a K-9 name is seen as disrespectful.
Waites emailed Krantz on March 15 to explain this. Waites wrote, “while it may appear a small or inconsequential matter to some, it is not to those of us who remember how police dogs were used against peacefully protesting civil rights workers and People of Color in the 1960s and are still used as a means of crowd control and intimidation today.”
Later on, the men met in person to discuss the matter and Waites stated to media outlets that Krantz agreed to change the dog’s name, expressing it was “a small but critical gesture of good faith.” Krantz, however, refuted the statement, saying “... please do not use this information as fact.” Regarding the meeting, he said, “I just wanted to make sure the information about the dog was really clarified, about the entire history of it.”
However, it has been confirmed by several reports that Krantz did change the K-9’s name. He expressed, “although the dog is not named after a musician, it’s important to recognize that some people may assume that or believe that [...] I think in the eyes of some community members there is a connection historically to the use of dogs, specifically on protestors and Black community members, and that, that could bring a fear of canines,” he said.
GRAMMY award-winning rapper, Lil' Kim has not made a statement regarding the matter.
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