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On 14 November 2016, various disreputable web sites, including TellMeNow.com and even the evangelical pastor Creflo Dollar, began posting a video of a young blonde woman getting kicked in by a police horse after slapping its rear end, claiming that she was a Black Lives Matter protester who received swift justice: According to the Kingston Police Department, the incident happened during a homecoming event for Queens University in Kingston, a city in Ontario, Canada. The incident had nothing to do with the Black Lives Matter movement. We haven't heard back from Kingston police regarding our inquiries, but a series of tweets sent out by the department on 15 October 2016 about the seemingly raucous day indicated that the horse, a mare called Murney, was new to the department and in the process of being trained. She had been slapped a total of three times during the the homecoming event and was startled, but she had not injured anyone. Police tweeted that the three horse slappers could be charged with injuring a law enforcement animal and receive a maximum of five years in prison: The video was posted to the social media platform Instagram, where it was widely viewed: Equestrians will tell you it's never a good idea to sneak up behind a horse: they have a blind spot directly behind them, and they often respond to movement in that area by kicking out with their powerful hind legs. Police horses are methodically trained over time to desensitize them from stimuli that would startle ordinary horses, allowing them to work calmly in high-stress situations.
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