Life-saving policeman to get an award

AN Edinburgh police officer, who saved a man’s life using the kiss-of-life after he fell unconscious in a car, is to receive a top award.

Pc Lee Cockburn, 39, of Lothian and Borders Police, has been awarded a Royal Humane Society Resuscitation Certificate for saving the life of 64-year old Robert Sinclair, of North Berwick.

As well as the award, Pc Cockburn has also won the personal praise of the society’s secretary, Dick Wilkinson.

Speaking as he announced the award he said: “Pc Cockburn’s first aid expertise almost certainly saved this man’s life. To all intents and purposes the man was dead when Pc Cockburn first saw him.”

He said Pc Cockburn and a colleague were patrolling after a football match last December in an area busy with pedestrian traffic.

“They were approached by a car driven by a man whose father was unconscious in the passenger seat.

“The man was immediately removed from the car and it was established that there were no vital signs.

“Pc Cockburn carried out mouth-to-mouth resuscitation until the ambulance arrived.”

Lothian and Borders Police chiefs nominated Pc Cockburn to receive the award, which will be handed over later this year.

Link

Police K-9 Olympics award winner shows why

East Hartford Police Officers and their award-winning K-9s, from left: David Rhoades and Charlie Brown, Stephen Gross and Odin, Todd Mona and Primo, and John Zavalick and Axel.

When the East Hartford Town Council and Mayor Melody Currey decided to honor the police department’s K-9 unit for their outstanding performance during the recent state K-9 Olympics, they couldn’t imagine that the first place winner in the competition would show up in bandages.

Yet danger is part and parcel of a public safety team member’s life. Only a concerted effort and a lot of luck that helped officer Steven Grossi’s partner Odin avoid the worse.

“We were tracking robbery suspects, and we ended up going into the woods, and we ended up with him catching his leg in … I think it was glass, but could have been some type of debris,” Grossi recalled, just before the start of the ceremony. “He got an artery cut, and he was bleeding really bad,” he said. “When I saw the bleeding – actually Jay Cohen pointed it out to me – I picked him up, carried him to the car – I have a First Aid bag that I keep in my car – I took a compress and pressed it on the wound.”

But not even that could stanch the blood, Grossi said, and the two officers and Odin ended up in Bolton Veterinary Hospital, with Cohen driving the car as fast as he could, and Grossi holding his wounded partner, where the doctors were able to stitch up the hole.

“They did wonders for him and got right in there and sewed him right up, and took care of him,” Grossi said. “But then they thought he was going to go into shock, [because of the blood loss,] but he pulled through. I was a little nervous, but he’s going to be fine.” It was only one more day in the life of one of the oldest and more successful K9 units in the state, which made even more appropriate the high praise the mayor and the Council heaped on the team.

And when town council chairman Richard Kehoe read a proclamation extending “sincere congratulations to the Officer/Canine teams John Zavalick and Axel, Stephen Grossi and Odin, and Todd Mona and Primo on their tremendous effort at the K-9 Olympics” and congratulating the entire East Hartford K-9 squad for their hard work and dedication throughout the year, the audience’s applause was long, warm, and sincere.

A separate proclamation honored Officer Todd Mona and his K9 partner, Primo, who in their first year of partnership achieved a long list of finds and apprehensions – among them tracking suspects in an armed robbery/kidnapping, tracking a suspect with felony warrants who violently resisted arrest, apprehending suspects involved in the beating of three tow truck operators, tracking suspects in several home burglaries, and even helping Manchester Police tracking down suspects involved in an armed robbery.

The team was honored with the state-wide “Daniel Wasson Memorial Canine Award” that has been established by the Connecticut Police Chiefs Association, and is named after a Milford K9 police officer who fell in the line of duty.

Not all K9 teams are though involved in tracking and apprehension work, and officer David Rhoades presented another valuable member of the police department that e work that plays a very important role in keeping the citizens of Connecticut and and visitors to the state safe: his own partner K9 Charlie Brown, who as a Labrador is particularly apt in sniffing out danger, and as a member of the regional bomb squad recently secured the site where Senator Obama gave his speech in Hartford, during the recent Democratic primaries.

Still, pointed out John Zavalick, “We couldn’t do that without a support system,” Zavalick explained. “Our families – number one. You know the dogs ruin our houses,” he explained to general laughter.

“And we certainly couldn’t do it without the support of our K9 unit, and that is run by lieutenant Todd Hanlon, … who reaches to us all the time: ‘Whatever you guys need.’”

During the entire length of the ceremony it was evident how highly the officers of the K9 unit and their four-legged partners were regarded by both town officials and the members of the public that were present, and every council member present offered his or her own praise, all of them drawing a lot of applause.

But it was newly elected state representative Jason Rojas who had a particularly poignant message for the officers.

“When I leave my family, every morning, they can be relatively sure I will be safe in my little air-conditioned office, while officers like you get up every day and go to your jobs, and your families have to worry about you come home at the end of your shifts. I thank you for all of your service.”

“You are an outstanding group of men and we thank you from the bottom of our heart,” added East Hartford Mayor Melody Currey, expressing the general sentiment in Town Hall Chambers Tuesday night.

Link

Sniffing out retirement

Like a lot of retired police officers, Bak yowls to return to the beat.

But like retirees everywhere, the more he takes it easy, the more he grows to enjoy it.

Bak was a drug-sniffing German shepherd dog teamed with city police canine Officer Michael Roth from 2000 until earlier this year.But in March, the police department retired Bak because of his age and the effects of an injury he suffered while tracking down a suspect last year.

Bak now spends his days with Roth, his wife, Katie, their 3-week-old daughter, Bridget, and and the family’s beagle mix, Cappi.

In a pen in the back yard is Bak’s colleague, a bomb-sniffing dog named Beil, named for Officer Joseph Beil, one of the five original canine officers. In honor of this year’s 50th anniversary of the city police canine unit, five new dogs have been named for the canine officers.

The recent retiree, Bak, hasn’t yet completely settled into the life of a plain old pet at Roth’s Southampton neighborhood home.

“It breaks my heart and breaks his heart to see me go,” Roth said. “When he sees me leaving, he still thinks it’s his time to go to work.”

To prevent fights, Bak is kept away from the 3-year-old Beil, at least for now.

On the other hand, Roth said, “He’s slowly adapted to being a couch potato.”

Roth joined the city police in January 1995 and was a patrolman until 2000, when he transferred to the canine unit and was partnered with Bak, who was born in October 1998.

When a dog teams up with a police officer, it stays with him for its entire career, said Sgt. Ken Hornak, who heads the K-9 unit. A concrete pad is poured at the canine officer’s home for a pen.

Over Bak’s career, Hornak said, he probably made hundreds of successful searches for drugs.

The department has eight drug-sniffing dogs and four bomb-sniffing dogs in the canine unit, all German shepherds.

While that is far less than the peak of 49 service dogs on the streets in 1979, they’re following a pioneering tradition that began when the city Board of Police Commissioners selected five officers in May 1958 to travel to London, England, for 16 weeks of training. They returned with police dogs.

“We were one of the first K-9 units in the country,” Hornak said.

In 1960, city police started a training center for canine officers at 13300 Bellfontaine Road in North County. People came from as far north as Canada and as far south as Florida, Hornak said.

Now officers come from local Missouri and Illinois departments within a 50-mile radius of St. Louis.

More than 120 police service dogs are buried in a cemetery at the training center. While none died on duty, a number of them were injured, Hornak said.

Bak suffered an injury on May 24, 2007 when he went into a vacant house where a suspect was hiding and severed an artery and two tendons in his right rear leg, possibly from a cut on a broken window.

After the suspect was caught, Roth performed first aid on the dog and then took Bak to a veterinarian.

By the time the dog reached the veterinarian’s office, he had lost a third of his blood.

After the dog’s life was saved, he won the 2008 Outstanding K-9 Service Award from the German Shepherd Dog Club.

But then the decision was made to retire Bak and bring in Beil.

Beil’s training was even tougher than Bak’s, Hornak said.

“In the certification process, the narcotics dogs are allowed a miss, but the bomb dogs have to be perfect,” Hornak said.

Since Beil started, his work has included sweeps of the campaigning area for three visits by Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barak Obama. He also may be called on to check the Edward Jones Dome before St, Louis Rams games.

Meanwhile, Bak has to watch while his master goes off to work with another dog.

“He’s slowly adjusted to the retired life,” Roth said. “He will want to work until the day he dies.”

Link/see pic here

Warsaw, Winona Lake K-9 Officers Recognized

Warsaw and Winona Lake Police K-9 Officers received recognition in the 9th Annual American Working Dog K-9 Olympics held Aug 19-21 at Vohne Liche Kennels in Denver, Indiana.

Warsaw Police Department Corporal Joel Beam with K-9 “BUDDY”, Corporal Allen Danko with K-9 “PAKO” joined Winona Lake Patrolman Joe Bumbaugh with K-9 “HUGO” to compete as a three-man team.

The team placed 2nd in the Overall K-9 Patrol Team competition. The Overall Patrol competition was based on tracking people, building searches, bite work, and K-9 control.

Danko and “PAKO” received 1st place in the obedience competition. The individual obedience competition included the K-9 responding to hand signals, voice commands, working through distractions, and overall obedience.

Beam and “BUDDY” tied for 3rd place in building searches. The K-9 team was judged on how quickly and how tactically hiding “suspects” could be located in a building.

The K-9 Olympics included more than 100 teams from 14 states and four countries, including such notables as the President of Ecuador’s Chief of Security and his K-9.

More than 30 individuals, representing Vohne Liche Kennels, and K-9 police officers from as far away as Honolulu P.D. judged the competition.

All events were based on a point system and tested dog teams competency, physical fitness and mental toughness.

Beam, Danko and Bumbaugh are certified by Vohne Liche Kennels and The American Working Dog association. Each participates locally in K-9 demonstrations for social service groups, schools and area events.

Each K-9 handler trains daily with their K-9 partner, and assist in narcotic searches in addition to normal police patrol duties

Vohne Liche Kennels is a full-service K9 training facility where the “best of the best” go for highly trained detection dogs. In operation since 1993, Vohne Liche Kennels has trained detection canines for over 500 law enforcement and government agencies, including the National Security Agency, Pentagon Police, U.S. Secret Service, every branch of the U.S. Military and agencies in over 20 foreign countries.

Link

me-OWWW!

LAKE PLACID – Two Highlands County sheriff’s deputies returning from a false alarm call, escaped injury after a rear-end collision with each other in the 600 block of Placid Lakes Boulevard late Thursday afternoon.

Deputy Jacob Riley, followed in a cruiser by deputy Brennen Warner, were headed back from the alarm call, when an orange tabby cat ran out in front of Riley’s lead car causing the deputy to swerve and brake suddenly.

Warner’s vehicle ran into the back of Riley’s car causing about $5,000 damage to Warner’s car and $1,800 damage to Riley’s car.

The Florida Highway Patrol investigated, said sheriff’s Sgt. Sean Casey on Friday. The patrol found the rear car was following too close.

The cat did not survive the crash.

Link

Police K-9 Units Prove Valuable

Police dogs are considered another “tool” for police trying to keep you safe, and in Madison, only the K-9 officer’s salary is covered by the city — the rest is covered by donations.Training such as searching for guns keeps K-9 and his partner, Officer Jim Donnell, ready for the real thing.

“It’s not the gun, whatever it may be… he’s looking for fresh human odor,” said Donnell.

During the next exercise, Johnny finds hidden cotton, smelling like drugs.

Madison police said these dogs do things humans can’t and are worth every penny when it comes to fighting crime. “The start-up costs for one dog is anywhere between $50 to $65,000. There’s the price of the car, equipment, radio — along with the dog and training with dog,” said Donnell.

A “dog paddle” is being put together by volunteers of the Capital K-9 program. Dogs of all types will be hitting the pool for the second-annual fundraiser.

“He can point out danger, situations before we get to them,” said Donnell.

The goal is more officers on the street like Johnny.”

(Johnny’s a) great tool for our department,” said Donnell.

Four K-9 patrol teams currently search for crime suspects or missing people along with finding evidence or drugs. They’d like to add two more for 24-hour-seven-days-a week coverage, WISC-TV reported. The Capital K-9 Dog Paddle is Monday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at Goodman Pool in Madison.

Link

Sheriff’s office hosts weeklong K-9 seminar

Lt. Tim Wilson and Bocca of the Watauga County Sheriff

More than a dozen law enforcement agencies were in Boone this week for a K-9 and handler seminar.

Watauga County Sheriff’s Office hosted the event, attended by 35 K-9 teams. The handlers and dogs went through training and critique sessions in the many areas where dogs are used by police.

Caldwell Community College and Technical Institute funded the event through its continuing education programs for police, fire and rescue.

Marco Vanhoof, owner of DACH Police Dogs and Services in Holland, was present with his employee Koeh Lubbers to lead the seminar. The DACH company is a leader in the breeding, training and exporting of police and military dogs from Europe. Canines from the company can be found all over the world and locally. Both Bocca and Rex of the Watauga County Sheriff’s Office are DACH dogs.

Mike Baker of Triangle K-9 in Durham was also present at the seminar. Triangle K-9 is a brokering service for law enforcement to purchase dogs for police use, as well as a training center.

Baker is also a sargeant with the Durham Police Department and oversees its K-9 units.

The seminar offered group training sessions in building searches, narcotics, scent identification and tracking.

The seminar also gave officers the opportunity to learn different training techniques to employ during the 25 to 30 hours per month each officer devotes to working on an individual level with his or her own dog.

Vanhoof worked one-on-one with each K-9 and handler team to identify and offer advice on issues specific to the pair.

“It is important to oversee the dogs and offer support, expertise and experience,” Vanhoof said.

Participants of the seminar were across the state of North Carolina, as well as from departments from Tennessee and Florida.

“This is also about networking and sharing experiences with other departments,” said deputy Wes Hawkins of the Watauga County Sheriff’s Office and handler of the K-9 Cheska.

The training exercises were held in various locations throughout Boone.

The real estate firm of Weber, Hodges and Godwin offered the use of the vacant commercial building on Shadowline Drive. The old CCC&TI campus buildings on the N.C. 105 Bypass and county property near the landfill were sites for the various training scenarios.

“We are happy to host this seminar and hope to make it annual event here in Boone,” Lt. Tim Wilson said.

The Watauga County Sheriff’s Office has four K-9 officers. Wilson handles Bocca and Bang, the bomb dog.
Deputy Chris Greene handles Rex, and Hawkins handles Cheska.

Wilson said over the last three years the dogs have seized an estimated $500,000 in narcotics and narcotics trafficking-related funds, as well as assisting in the tracking of several people suspected of crimes in Watauga County.

Link

DCP adds K-9’s to the force

DOUGHERTY COUNTY, GA (WALB) – History has been made within the Dougherty County Police Department. It’s a change that adds more bite to the way officers fight crime. For the first time, DCP has a K-9 unit. Two K-9’s recently joined the force and they’re already getting suspects off the streets.

Under lock and key for some parts of the day is a furry guy with a different kind of name. “This is Domé,” said Sgt. Lee Reynolds with Dougherty County Police.

Domé is even from a different country, the Czech Republic.  But for the past two months the 2-year-old German Shepherd has made a difference as he trains here in Georgia. “The dogs are trained in obedience, agility, apprehension,” said Reynolds.

Reynolds and Domé make up a new team that is hitting the streets of Dougherty County. On Monday night, they ended up on Radium Springs Road. “I saw a vehicle that was stopped in the road, saw four young men walking up to the vehicle,” said Reynolds.

The four suspects would not stop for Sgt. Reynolds.  One ran away but three of them stopped for Domé. “I opened the door and took the dog out and three of them froze and stood right there with me,” said Reynolds.

It turns out the vehicle was stolen from South Georgia Auto Auction and three juveniles were taken into custody. “If I had not had the dog with me or another officer, the other three would have most likely ran,” said Reynolds.

That’s a prime example of the effectiveness of having K-9’s, not just for suspects but searches. The dogs will be able to help find everything from missing people to evidence. “If we have a situation where someone throws a gun down, I can take out and run a grid with him and he’ll find that gun,” said Reynolds.

“It’s a visual tool,” said Chief Don Cheek with Dougherty County Police.

Domé is one of two new K-9’s on the Dougherty County Police force. Sgt. Reynolds only sees them continuing to make a difference. “Very effective tool for us to have and we are very fortunate and proud to have them as members of our department,” said Reynolds.

There’s also another important benefit. “These dogs are a part of our families,” said Reynolds. So get used to seeing them around the county.

The other new K-9 is Goliath. All local law enforcement will be able to use the dogs at their request.

The new additions cost about $20,000.   Everything from the dogs to the kennels they’re kept in were all paid for with donations from local citizens and business owners.

To help out, you can call DCP at 229-430-6600.

Link

Policeman who’s a polar explorer in his spare time

Mike Thornewill is a man of extremes – when he’s not tackling crime as a police inspector in Nottingham, he leads expeditions across the freezing ice plains to the North and South Poles.

The two jobs use similar skills, insists Mike who, in 20 years, has worked his way up from PC.

“I love making quick decisions and get a buzz out of handling a volatile situation,” says Mike.

“I love challenges, adrenaline and managing risks as they crop up.”

Job satisfaction, he says, can be found whether facing the car accident scene or a polar bear prowling round a tent.

And in both worlds Mike, 45, has found more than his fair share of challenges.

Last year he ran into burning flats just after an explosion caused by a suicidal man with a samurai sword.

“I had two officers unaccounted for. I followed shouts into the burning flat, to find them wrestling with the offender who’d survived the blast.” In contrast an expedition to the South Pole can involve a 700-mile walk dragging a 200lb sledge of supplies, uphill, into wind, in temperatures down to-50C.

It was his father reading him the story of Captain Scott that led to Mike’s lifelong dream of making an epic expedition to the South Pole.

He says: “At school I discovered cross-country running, then climbing. It became my passion.”

Career-wise Mike was unsure.

“I looked at anything that wasn’t driving a desk. I thought the police might suit, so I joined.”

Meanwhile his spare time was devoted to marathons, triathlons, and rock climbing.

But in 1997 Mike’s friend and climbing partner Alex Hibbert died from leukaemia aged just 32.

“I was very challenged by his death.

“It made me aware of my own mortality – if Alex could die so could I,” he explains.

“My wife Fiona and I sat down and realised we had to live every day of our lives as best we could.”

They went to Spitsbergen, an island in the Arctic Circle above Norway on a 10-day expedition using sledges and dogs. Temperatures fell to -25C and the couple woke one night to find a polar bear trying to get into their tent.

Link

CSI: Lakeville

Trooper Michael Lombard

You know those “CSI” television shows where cops in white coats solve crimes with a click of the mouse inside an hour?

The only similarity to that land of make-believe and the real world of police work at the new State Police crime lab in Lakeville is the white coats.

“It’s a long and tedious process,” said Sergeant Douglas Weddleton, who works in the laboratory’s ballistics section. “You enter data in the database, compare what you find; you have to physically compare it to the evidence. It takes a long time.”

In a nutshell, said Detective Lieutenant Kenneth F. Martin, who commands the Crime Scene Services section of the State Police, “this is not TV.”

The 8,600-square-foot Lakeville facility, which opened last winter, is the newest of the nine State Police labs across the state. Housed in a new building leased for $1.44 million for five years, the lab replaces a tiny, makeshift operation in the basement of the State Police barracks in Middleborough.

Previously, local police departments that needed help from State Police investigators had to wait for them to arrive from far-flung areas of the state. Although the main State Police crime lab is in Maynard, the new regional labs work with their area law enforcement agencies and have investigative teams on site, ready to roll.

“Now, everything’s here, in one place,” Major James M. Connolly, deputy division commander of forensic services, said of the Lakeville crime lab. “It’s a one-stop shop.”

At any given time, a core group of 20 chemists, ballistic experts, fingerprint technicians, and other forensic specialists are working on 100 cases in Lakeville, said Sergeant Steven Bennett, who is in charge of the regional lab.

Law enforcement agencies from across Southeastern Massachusetts use the Lakeville lab, bringing in evidence to be analyzed.

The work is occasionally gruesome; for instance, a hand found in Holbrook was brought to the Lakeville lab for DNA analysis. After additional work at the main lab in Maynard, investigators determined that the hand was linked to a murder in Hull, Bennett said.

“A lot of what we do is homicides, maybe 30 a year out of this office,” he said. “Some without a lot of evidence, like a drive-by where no one sees anything and no evidence is found, can be quick, but others are very time consuming. We had a murder in a Holbrook apartment once, for example, where we were there well over 12 hours.”

“I like to say attorneys have all the time in the world to go over a case in court,” Martin said. “We only get one shot.”

Investigators swarm a crime scene with all manner of investigative tools, including the rather ominous-sounding “bite-mark kit,” gathering up whatever evidence they can, dusting for fingerprints, photographing and videotaping the entire scene.

“We do fingerprinting, footwear, blood spatter, everything,” Bennett said, before the technicians take their findings to the lab for analysis and documentation.

There are three gun tanks in the ballistics section to test weapons, including high-powered rifles, which are fired through layers of tightly compressed cotton batting. There are two microscopes in ballistics, a modern one hooked up to a digital computer with all the bells and whistles of one you would see on a TV show, and another low-tech scope from 1968. Both serve their purpose, Weddleton said; the old model is great for basic side-by-side comparisons of marks on shell casings.

The lab is home to a wide range of guns confiscated for analysis, from a tiny derringer to a whopping .454 Magnum, capable of bringing down a grizzly bear.

“Criminals are getting smarter. They’re using guns like .22s or .38s, which are revolvers, because the bullet casings stay in the gun and aren’t ejected,” as is the case with 9mm or .45s, which can leave behind valuable evidence for police, Weddleton said.

In the fingerprint section, they use many methods for getting prints from evidence, including super glue vapor in a glass chamber – a staple of many police labs. Also here is a blue-light room where tiny amounts of gold dust can be sprinkled on a surface, such as a gun handle, to raise a stubborn print, Bennett said.

Nothing is overlooked at a crime scene, Bennett said, recalling a recent case where tire tracks helped solve the murder of a woman whose body was dumped in a Braintree reservoir.

Over in the biological section, forensic chemists and lab workers analyze such evidence as bullet-riddled clothing to gauge how far away the victim was from the shooter. Up to 80 percent of the lab’s workload involves sexual-assault cases, and the biological section analyzes all the evidence gathered with a sexual-assault kit, which includes the bite-mark gear.

“We process everything in a rape case,” forensic chemist Daniel M. Pratt said, adding that cases involving the young are especially urgent. In one recent case involving a 14-year-old girl, a suspect was found by DNA evidence left on gloves used in the crime.

The lab is connected to a statewide automated identification system that allows investigators to scan 700,000 fingerprints for matches. There is no nationwide link yet, but one is in the works. But even then it still won’t be like TV shows where, seemingly in milliseconds, a match is made that shows a suspect’s face, address, place of employment, and just about any other vital statistic that real cops can only dream about.

In recent years, State Police crime labs have been criticized for inefficiency and backlogs dating to the 1980s, but the addition of the regional facilities, like the one in Lakeville, should reduce delays, Martin said, even as the successes of the lab bring it more business from local police forces.

“The more cases you can make forensically, the more agencies will bring evidence in, which is fine,” Martin said. “But there are backlogs in 99 percent of all police labs, all over the country; we just need to bring the number down to a manageable level, and the Lakeville lab will definitely help.”

Link