Award-winning dog bites Vienna police chief
Vienna police chief Karl Mahrer’s streak of bad luck continues as he was bitten by an award-winning dog last night (Thurs).Mahrer decorated German shepherd Verdi with a special medal for sniffing out a stolen suitcase containing 183,000 Euros earlier this year.But as soon as he was led to the podium by police woman Sabine Empacher, the dog lashed out at Mahrer sinking his teeth into the police chiefs leg.Mahrer shrugged off the attack, saying he had suffered “just a bruise”.But the incident comes just weeks after a magazine uncovered that Mahrer had earned an academic title after sitting just eight weeks of lectures.Political magazine profil revealed the police general was eligible to call himself Bachelor of Arts after a drastically shortened “Police Leadership” Bachelor course offered to police officials by Wiener Neustadts Fachhochschule (FH) college.The weekly also claimed at least one dozen high-ranking policemen have so far taken the opportunity to sit the special eight-week course while it takes other students at least six semesters to reach the same degree.The report suggested some police officials had to sit only eight weekend seminars to win the Bachelor degree which boosted their earning potential within the force.And this was after it had emerged Mahrer was one of Viennas 40 daily burglary victims in 2009. His flat in the city’s Landstraße district was ransacked by crooks in May of last year.Mahrer said in a newspaper interview only a few weeks earlier when being asked whether he was afraid himself considering soaring break-in figures: “My flat is well protected.”