K9 Officers Demo Dogs In Action

Two integral members of the Ledyard law enforcement team, German Shepherds Lambeau and Ringo, showed their stuff at the United Way Building Thursday, successfully sniffing out a hidden cache of “drugs” and helping to subdue the suspects.

The demonstration was the final guest lecture in the CSI For The General Public Teaching Series, organized by i5 Teaching Network president Marge Anderson.  Ledyard officers Bobby Kempke and Dan Gagnon volunteered to speak about the how police use dogs and to demonstrate their dogs in action. 

Kempke said the primary uses are “searches, tracking and apprehension.” The tracking part is not limited to suspects, Kempke explained, but also children and seniors. “We track for anyone that’s lost,” he said.

The dogs are also instrumental in car searches, where they are trained to recognize the smell of cocaine, heroin and marijuana. Officers play with the dogs using towels soaked in the smell of a drug. Later on, when they go to search a vehicle, it becomes a part of the game to them.

How sensitive is a dog’s nose?  The officers trained their dogs inside of warehouses in the heat of summer. Even with the conflicting smells of oil and mouldering fish, the dogs were still able to find where officers had placed a drug odor. People with drugs in the vehicle often mistakenly believe that they can conceal them with other strong odors such as dryer bags.

Discriminating snouts are not fooled so easily. “I’ve been on the force 13 years and I have seen all kinds of tricks,” Gagnon said. “If there’s something in there, they won’t fail.”

Even trampled blades of grass in a field release an odor that dogs can follow. Prison officials in Pennsylvania have used dogs’ sense of smell to track down contraband cell phones.

The group walked outside where Kempke introduced Lambau, a 70-pound German Shepherd. Somewhere outside, Kempke had hidden a bit of evidence that was scented with the smell of drugs. When he gave the “find” command, Lambeau quickly found the object, which was hidden in a bit of fence.

The dogs’ super-sharp noses are also useful for accumulating bits of evidence that bear traces of a suspect’s odor. Or, in the case of Kempke, his keys. At a training event in upstate New York, he discovered he had accidentally dropped his keys somewhere in a large field. No problem for Lambeau, who was able to sniff them out for his grateful owner.

Ringo is a German Shepherd like Lambeu, but weighs in at a whopping 120 pounds. The Ledyard Police received him from a seeing-eye dog training school, which found him to be too big and aggressive for their program.

Kempke, wearing a bite resistant sleeve on his arm, got to play the roll of a fleeing suspect. The police department will give suspects that flee or hide a warning before they realease a dog. In this case, Kempke chose to ignore Gagnon’s warning and made a break for it down the lawn.

Ringo sprung after him and seized his jaws around the sleeve. Kempke spun around, barely holding his balance in a wrestling match with the massive dog.

In the next demonstration, Kempke pushed Gagnon, prompting Ringo to jump at him again. Normally an officer has to give the dog the OK before it attacks, but if someone assaults an officer, the dog won’t wait.

Police dogs are selected for being much tougher than other dogs. Its bite has to be as bad as its bark, in other words. “You can punch them, hold them and kick them,” said Gagnon. “They’re not going to let go.”

“We equate it to the high school kid who makes it to the NFL; that’s how rare it is,” Kempke said.

For that kind of resumé, police departments will pay $6,500 per dog, a big hike from the going rate 10 years ago. Before 9/11, canines went for closer to $1,500.

After the department gets the dog, officers will train him for 16 weeks, with an additional eight weeks of narcotics training. The dogs take refresher lessons every two weeks and will see an average of six to eight years on the force—plenty of action.

Last year, Ledyard had 300 incidents that required K9 intervention. Often times, dispatch will send the dogs to incidents in surrounding towns, even as far away as Plainfield.

At the end of the day, the dogs go home with the officer they are assigned to. Once they get out of the cruiser and into the house, the dogs will relax into the role of family pet, until the next day when it’s time for work.

“We get to work with our best friends,” Kempke said.