Ozzy (Muncie’s new police dog, not the rocker) arrives

The K-9 police dog purchased by heavy metal rocker Ozzy Osbourne and his son, Jack, made his way to Muncie last week to spend time with his partner, Muncie Police Sgt. Jay Turner, and train on the streets of Muncie.

“Jack and Ozzy sure came through for the department,” Turner said. “The Osbourne family, they donated the money for the dog without even thinking about it, they just did it, which was very nice.”

Turner received two checks in the mail just a few weeks ago. Both Ozzy and Jack gave the same amount: $4,500.

Jack Osbourne became a good friend to Muncie police after he spent time in the city as a reserve officer during the filming of the CBS reality television series Armed in Famous in 2006. He’s kept in touch with other officers and earlier this year convinced his father to help buy the department a police dog to replace an aging K-9 officer.

“Obviously with all the cuts in the city, (getting a new dog) is something that hasn’t been on a front burner for us,” Police Chief Deb Davis said. “When I found out that Ozzy and Jack had agreed to pick up the tab I was a little surprised…it’s kind of neat.”

The money Jack and Ozzy donated is more than enough.

Turner purchased the dog for $8,000 — $1,000 less than most K-9s because Ozzy is only partially trained. Turner is doing the rest himself, and the extra thousand will go into the K-9 budget for food and care for Ozzy and the MPD’s two other K-9 dogs.

Rover, Turner’s 13-year-old partner of nine years, was part of that crew before his recent retirement.

Now, he’ll live at home with Turner and his family, something they all find bittersweet.

“We knew it was time for Rover to retire, but kind of sad for him to retire, but happy that he’ll be home with us more.” Turner’s wife, Dawn, said last Tuesday when the Turner family met Ozzy at the former MPD horse barn just south of the downtown YMCA.

There, the family spent time getting acquainted with Ozzy, who will be living with them for years to come. Turner asked his family to help him give Ozzy a bath, a method used to bond with the dog.

“Giving him a bath, feeding him for the first time, doing things like that is part of the bonding process with the dog,” Turner said.

Turner also practiced apprehensions using a decoy, his daughter’s boyfriend, Aaron Brooks. Training continued throughout the week. On Sunday, Turner took Ozzy to Tuhey Park for training in tracking, as well as the old city parking garage on Washington Street for more apprehension training.

Tracking is used to find missing persons or suspects. The dog learns to pick up the scent of the person. Indiana State Police Senior Trooper Shawn Cosgrove, who helped Turner with the training, said he’s seen a dog track a scent that was two years old.

“The tracking is the only thing he didn’t have. So, what we’re doing now is we’re starting Ozzy off at the very (beginning), like what the green dogs start out, with the very beginning of tracking,” Turner said. “From there we’ll do basic building searches and we’re just starting showing him the way I want him to search.”

Turner expects Ozzy, though he’s still learning, to do well at the police department.

“Ozzy is a very young dog and has a lot of puppy in him…he’s willing to go and work a lot, and he works really fast,” Turner said.

BY Kelly Day

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Pup Trains For Barnstable Police K-9 Unit

To the uninitiated it sounds like chaos — guttural growls and warning barks from 35 assorted dogs and the occasional human voice that silences them.

In a nearby field, Arec, a Dutch shepherd puppy, ignores them all.

It couldn’t matter less to him that nearly three dozen other police dogs and their handlers are training. His eyes are focused on Quincy K-9 Officer Scott Smith, who, with one hand gesture, gets the 15-week-old puppy to sit. Another hand gesture combined with body movement, and Arec goes flat on the ground.

It takes but one hand gesture from Quincy K-9 Officer Scott Smith to get 15-week-old Arec to sit. And the Dutch shepherd puppy has already begun tracking, too, preparing for his work in Barnstable. Cape Cod Times/Merrily Lunsford

And that’s not all. Arec, who will soon be coming to work for the Barnstable Police Department, has already started tracking. Sure, it’s only for 60 or 70 feet, and true, he’s tracking the food that Smith uses for training. But as Barnstable K-9 Officer Sean Roycroft watches Arec, a light comes into his eyes and a small smile begins to form at the corners of his mouth.

Arec will soon be coming home with Roycroft to begin a career with Barnstable. But this little pup has some very big paw prints to fill.

Only a few weeks ago, Roycroft lost his K-9 partner, Cole, to cancer. The 10-year-old German shepherd, who spent all of his nine-year working life in Roycroft’s company — did it all. He found lost elderly people, tracked a man who tried to rape a young girl in her own bedroom, and sank his teeth into more than a few optimists who believed they could outrun a police dog.

“I was just the guy at the end of the lead,” Roycroft said. “From the first time he jumped into the back of a cruiser to the last time he jumped out, Cole wanted to work.”

 

Although Roycroft doesn’t say so, other K-9 officers will say it for him.

“Cole was one of the most incredible dogs, a real hero,” said Lt. Barney Murphy, second in command of the Barnstable Sheriff’s Department K-9 unit. “He worked up to two days before he died and never slowed down.”

Cole’s illness and death have prompted Roycroft and the two other Barnstable K-9 officers to form a tax-exempt, nonprofit organization aimed at paying for medical treatment of the department’s dogs.

The Barnstable Police K-9 Fund is the first of its kind on the Cape and Islands, but it is not the first in the state.

The Braintree police organized the Working Dog Foundation, a tax-exempt nonprofit, for similar reasons.

Barnstable’s K-9 officers — Roycroft, Jeffrey Jackson and Troy Perry — will make the initial donations to the fund and schedule fundraisers.

The cost of maintaining a police dog runs about $500 to $600 a year, but treatment for injury or illness can run into the thousands.

At the training session last week in Duxbury where Arec strutted his stuff the subject was on the minds of officers from many departments.

None of them wants to see an injury or illness force a department to euthanize a dog rather than pay for expensive medical treatment.

“There is so much strain on police departments these days. Budgets have been cut and no one sees it improving in the future,” Roycroft said.

“We don’t want to see a choice have to be made between medical treatment for one of our dogs and budgets.”

There is a retirement fund for police dogs — the Cape Cod Police K-9 Relief Fund (online at capecodpolicek9.org/index.html) — that helps handlers take care of retired dogs, which generally become part of the handler’s family. Once a dog’s career is over, no public money is available to keep the dog.

Roycroft and fellow K-9 officers don’t want to see working dogs become victims of budget cutbacks.

In the meantime, Arec is a long way from retirement. Given his recent growth spurt and rambunctious personality, he appears to be in the best of health.

Arec is from a first litter of nine puppies whelped at the Barnstable County Sheriff’s Department as part of a new breeding and training program under the direction of Kenneth Ballinger.

Once the puppies were old enough, Ballinger, a second-generation breeder and trainer, farmed them out to foster families like that of Quincy K-9 Officer Smith, who will soon turn Arec’s training over to Roycroft.

It will probably be another eight months before Arec is a full-fledged departmental K-9, but it is only a matter of weeks before he starts riding around the patrol car with Roycroft.

“I’m looking forward to that,” Roycroft said with a smile. “It will be nice to have a partner in the car again.”

By Karen Jeffrey

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Spring Lake police to reaffirm duty in ceremony

Nine officers on the Spring Lake police are set to reaffirm their duty to protect and serve during a formal ceremony.

The Fayetteville Observer reports that the town’s remaining officers will participate in the ceremony at Town Hall Monday night.

Following the ceremony, interim Police Chief Gregg Jarvies’s job will be done. Jarvies has worked since mid-May, and his original contract called for him to stay until September; an extension kept him in place into November. Wednesday will be his last day.

The town has been without police department presence since May, when a District Court judge effectively stripped the department of its powers. Two officers had been arrested as part of a State Bureau of Investigation probe. The police chief resigned in May.

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Police christen new mobile command base

- It has a rooftop infrared camera that can focus on license plates hundreds of yards away. It’s equipped with roving internet, police database and television access. It’s a massive black truck that can put the majority of law-enforcement assets — weaponry, high and low tech equipment and human expertise — at the scene of a police emergency.

Introduced on Saturday, the new SWAT/CINT mobile command unit was built by the community and has been a long time in coming, officials said at a public viewing in the Wegmans parking lot.

“All the equipment we need to roll to a scene is maintained and housed in this vehicle,” said Deputy Ithaca Police Chief John Barber. The vehicle was custom built by an Ohio company at the cost of $460,000, said Barber and officer and SWAT team member John Arsenault.

The city of Ithaca funded more than half the project, Barber said. The rest came from a Homeland Security grant via the Tompkins county Sheriff’s Office, asset seizure money, donations from Cornell University and Ithaca College and a sizeable donation from the Triad Foundation, he added.

“I think it’s a piece of equipment the community deserves,” said Triad Foundation executive director Joanne V. Florino. “The mission of this vehicle is the peaceful resolution of incidents.”

Arsenault was the manager of the project, which began in December 2006. The truck was designed to specifications determined by a committee of seven Ithaca Police Department officials and two Ithaca fire officials, Arsenault said.

After three years, several trips to Ohio, and hundreds of e-mails, the project was completed. When the vehicle was picked up last week, “We were just in awe,” he said.

The original SWAT vehicle was an ambulance loaded with gear every time it was called out, Barber said. Then officers — working with donated materials and tools and sometimes in their spare time — retrofitted an old Tompkins Consolidated Area Transit bus into the next SWAT vehicle, said Investigator Mike Gray, who is also a member of Critical Incident Negotiating Team (CINT).

The vehicle increases their ability to function 50-fold and allows them to be self-contained at an incident — putting more Ithaca police, fire and sheriff’s office resources at the scene, he added.

Like its predecessor, the new SWAT has three sections — an equipment area, a tactical operation center, and a room for CINT, which can be closed off so members can negotiate without distractions. Unlike its predecessor, it’s equipped with state-of-the-art electronics, including a sophisticated communication system. “We’re able to talk to everybody no matter what radio system they use,” Barber said.

Police department heritage is also built into the vehicle. It’s numbered “99″ after the “1199″ code for SWAT incidents, and like the old vehicle, has the “knock knock” phrase on it, which began as joke when discussing what to put on the old vehicle’s marquee, Arsenault explained.

The vehicle also carries the name of Ithaca Police Investigator Michael A. Padula, who was stabbed to death in 1996 by a woman with a history of mental illness, and according to the department’s SWAT web site, the team was begun as a direct result.

“This SWAT team was formed in tragedy,” Florino said. “There’s so much of their sweat and toil that went into their vehicle, and they’re too modest too mention it.”

By Raymond Drumsta

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Abington wins Montgomery County SWAT competition

Abington Police Department dominated the competition for the second consecutive year at Montgomery County’s SWAT Challenge Saturday, winning the District Attorney’s Cup.

In its third year, the competition at the Montgomery County Public Safety Training Campus drew more than 100 officers from county SWAT and emergency response teams testing officers’ physical abilities, rescue techniques and marksmanship.

The Abington police unit also won the Obstacle Course, Sniper Event and Three Gun Event. The central Montgomery County SWAT unit, or CMSWAT, won the Hostage Rescue event, according to DA Risa Vetri Ferman.

Besides Abington and CMSWAT, other teams representing the following departments competed for the District Attorney’s Cup that was awarded to the overall point champion:

Montgomery County Correctional Facility, or CERT; North Penn Tactical Team is made up of Lansdale, Hatfield, Upper Gwynedd, Towamencin, Lower Salford, Franconia, Souderton, Telford, North Wales, Marlborough and Upper Perkiomen police; Colonial Team, which includes Plymouth, Whitemarsh and Conshohocken officers, is now part of CMSWAT, which is made up of officers from Montgomery, Lower Gwynedd, Whitpain, East Norriton, West Norriton, Bridgeport, Upper Merion, Lower Providence and Royersford.

Also competing was the Chester-Montgomery Emergency Response Team, CMERT, comprised of police from Pottstown, Collegeville, Upper Providence, Lower Pottsgrove, West Pottsgrove, Upper Pottsgrove, Douglas, New Hanover, Limerick, North Coventry and Colebrookdale; As well, a Lower Merion team was a new entry this year.

Each team consisted of at least seven persons, two of whom were snipers. The teams competed in four different events that tested their physical abilities, teamwork, firearms abilities, and their ability to be “mission ready” at all times.

The four challenges consisted of an obstacle course designed to test a team’s physical endurance, a five-member hostage rescue that included live fire to test their training in SWAT tactics and teamwork, a sniper event that tested the shooting and physical abilities of each team’s snipers, and a three gun competition that tested each team’s use of firearms as well as their physical capabilities.

Ferman said a surprise event this year was dubbed “The Killer Event,” or critical incident low-light emergency response. The Abington team won this event as well.

“They were faced with a low light situation, and they were firing at moving targets in the dark,” she said.

The event was judged by county detectives; U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Philadelphia District Commander, Lt. Col. Thomas Tickner; Pennsylvania State Police Deputy Commander of Operations, Lt. Col. Tedescung Bandy; and the coordinator of Pennsylvania State Police SERT East, Lt. Col. Joseph Wilson.

The SWAT Challenge was organized by First Assistant DA Kevin Steele and his administrative assistant Heather Makler.

BY KEITH PHUCAS

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New Effort Aims to Keep Cops in Shape

Last week, Wauwatosa police officer Luke Vetter found himself chasing and wrestling a young crime suspect. In a matter of seconds, the boy got on top of him, forcing Vetter to sit up and push the boy off so the officer could take control of the situation.

That kind of physical exertion proves pretty typical during patrols because many suspects resist arrest, so it is important officers are in good shape, he said.

In at least a dozen U.S. cases per year, officers die from the taxation to their heart that comes from the quick transition of sedentary sitting in a patrol car to sprinting after a criminal, said Vetter, who also is president of one of the local police unions.

A new partnership between the city and police unions will attempt to get more staff involved in fitness training to lower insurance costs, reduce officer injuries and cut down on the number of employee sick days.

Fitness center gets an upgrade

With the help of a donation of about $10,000 worth of fitness equipment from the Wisconsin Athletic Club, $10,000 from officers and $10,000 from a grant, the Police Department was able to greatly improve its basement exercise center last week.

Department employees can work out 24 hours a day using treadmills, an elliptical trainer and countless weight-lifting and resistance machines. A flat-screen television donated by Best Buy now hangs on the wall by the cardio equipment.

All of this comes as part of a larger city effort to focus on wellness and take a proactive approach to finding and treating potential health problems before costly surgeries or hospitalizations become necessary, Capt. Dale Weiss said.

During the 2008-’10 bargaining sessions, the unions got on board with wellness concept and so far, 93 percent of all city employees, as well as a majority of the retirees who continue to receive insurance through Wauwatosa are participating.

At the citywide level, the Invest in Wellness program participants undergo health screenings, then meet with coaches to understand their risks and create goals to lower them. Age-appropriate tests, such as mammograms and colonoscopies, also are required. In early 2010, data from the program’s first year will be available, which will help human resources staff better refine the wellness program.

While the city has seen its health insurance costs decrease, other tactics of cost control must be implemented or “that bar will start ratcheting up again,” City Administrator James Archambo told the Budget Committee earlier this fall.

Fitness has some perks

Officers can use the new fitness equipment to train, then prove their progress by passing a physical fitness test based on one used by the U.S. Army. Those employees who meet the standards for each task, plus an overall score based on age and gender, will receive a day off, Capt. Jeff Sutter said. Those who are in top shape and reach a yet-to-be decided “super score” will qualify for two days off.

Taking the fitness test is voluntary and only represented employees qualify for the days off, but Sutter expects just about everyone in the department will get involved based on the nature of officers’ competitive personalities.

“I’m looking for some type of morale-boosting comraderie,” he said.

Vetter said he has no doubt the $7,500 his union paid toward the fitness equipment is a well-spent investment, especially at a time when municipal employees seem to be getting a bad rap from the public for being a drain on resources.

“We understand the perspective. We get it, and we want to help out,” Vetter said. “As a union, we have to participate and compromise.”

BY THE NUMBERS

Wauwatosa’s Invest in Wellness program has already helped employees catch some issues through routine health screenings. The following are a few examples:

2

early stage colon cancers detected

9

people referred for pre-diabetes care

31

with elevated cholesterol levels

2

with elevated prostate cancer levels

AT A GLANCE

Want to try the fitness test Wauwatosa Police Department will use next year? Here’s the breakdown:

Step 1: Perform as many push-ups as possible in a two-minute period, then rest for 10 minutes.

Step 2: Perform as many sit-ups as possible in a two-minute period, then rest for 10 minutes.

Step 3: Finish with a timed two-mile run

The city may not follow the Army’s scoring exactly, but for an idea of fitness standards, check out www.army.com/enlist/APFT.html

By Stefanie Scott

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High Point PD To Get New Patrol Dog

The High Point Police Department will soon get a new patrol dog. The Furniture City Kennel Club presented the department with a check during the AKC Dog Show taking place over the weekend at the Greensboro Coliseum.

The police officers received the check just before the Best in Show Competition. The High Point Police Department currently has eight dogs but one will soon retire because of age and health concerns.

BY Carrie Hodgin

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Steelers Quarterback Gives K-9 To Denver Police

Pittsburgh Steelers Quarterback Ben Roethlisberger is helping out Denver police. The Super Bowl Champion announced his latest grant will be given to the City of Denver Police Department for a new K-9 officer.

The Ben Roethlisberger Foundation distributes grants to police and fire departments in Pittsburgh, and cities of each regular season away opponent for the Steelers.

The Pittsburgh Steelers take on the Denver Broncos at Invesco Field at Mile High in Denver Monday, Nov. 9.

The Denver Police Department is seeking financial assistance to purchase a new canine to replace retiring canines at the end of this year.

The department’s K-9 supervisor, Sgt. Evan Hvizdak, said The Ben Roethlisberger Foundation grant will allow the department to keep service dogs on the front lines.

The average grant for a police canine and a vest totals $8,000.

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North Iowa Trooper Keeps Watch From Overhead

Iowa State Patrol Trooper Joe Scott of Garner is keeping North Iowans safer from 4,000 feet in the air.

Scott is a trooper-pilot for the Iowa State Patrol.

Weather permitting, Scott takes to the air each day to help other troopers on the ground catch speeders, search for missing people and assist other agencies including transportation of emergency blood or tissue for transplant.

Scott started as a trooper-pilot in July 2007.

If the weather isn’t favorable for flying, Scott patrols in his squad car.

“Every day that the weather permits and I am scheduled to work, I fly,” he said.

The Cessna 172 four-seater assigned to Scott is kept in a hangar at the Mason City Municipal Airport.

On this day, he is getting ready to head about seven miles south of Mason City to patrol I-35 for traffic violators.

“We keep speeds down. We can utilize the airplane and a number of ground officers to do the same amount of work or do three times the amount of work that a person might normally be able to do by themselves.

“With the heavier traffic and everything else, it’s not always safe to try and turn around and stop a vehicle. That’s where the aircraft comes into play,” Scott said.

The State Patrol has seven fixed-wing aircraft and eight full-time pilots. One airplane stationed in southwest Iowa is equipped with an infrared thermal imaging system.

Sgt. Ken Paradise, aircraft administrative officer for the Iowa State Patrol, said traffic enforcement is a big part of the air wing’s mission but it goes beyond that.

“The aircraft are available to any agency in the state of Iowa any time that needs air support. We fly missions looking for lost children, elderly people who walk away from a nursing home or something along that line. We use the aircraft to help look for drowning victims,” Paradise said.

A suicidal woman was located recently in a cornfield in northern Iowa with the help of the aircraft’s thermal imaging system.

The State Patrol is the only agency in the state right now that has an air wing.

The city of Cedar Rapids had aircraft but discontinued the program about two years ago, Paradise said.

The state paid for Scott’s flight training. Trooper pilots must also complete law enforcement training through the Iowa Department of Public Safety.

“If you have a pilot’s license, that’s an added benefit to us. We will train them and pay for the private pilot’s license,” Paradise said.

The pilot must also earn an instrument rating “to fly in the clouds,” Paradise said.

The planes are compact.

“These aren’t quite like your big planes. You feel every bump and everything,” Scott said.

Scott circles an area looking for violations. If he spots something, he alerts a trooper on the ground.

“They’re relying 100 percent on what I’m telling them,” Scott said.

On this day there are two ground cars.

“He looks like he might be doing close to 80,” Scott said of a red vehicle traveling southbound on I-35.

He radios a trooper on the ground.

“I stay with the vehicle until the trooper gets it stopped so there’s no mistaking which vehicle it is.”

Scott said the trooper on the ground tells the driver that he was clocked traveling over the speed limit by the plane.

“There’s no secret to it,” Scott said.

“The pilot sees the violation and records it in his notes. The trooper makes the traffic stop. It takes both of them to go to court,” Paradise said.

Scott knows the importance of what he does in the air.

“I located a missing child (near Dows). The child and dog were found a distance away from where they were supposed to be,” Scott said.

“I located a person that had drowned that was missing. That was sad. It was still good to give closure to the relatives on that one. There’s been so many things as far as aviation. Every day is a different adventure I guess,” Scott said.

 

LINK

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-ap-ia-exchange-flyingtr,0,3621964.story?page=2

Traffic Law Changed

Drivers who are stopped by a Mississippi Highway Patrol State Trooper are now required to answer more than “Do you know how fast you were going?”

An amendment that went into effect July 1, known as the uniform traffic ticket law, now requires a driver to tell troopers his or her phone number and mailing address.

“(Drivers) have to put an address on their driver’s license, and sometimes it doesn’t match with their mailing address,” Mississippi Highway Patrol Sgt. Rusty Boyd said.

Since asking for personal information is new to Mississippi officers, and most drivers aren’t aware of the changes to the procedure, Boyd said the highway patrol wanted to ensure people they are following state orders.

“We’re not out there just asking for somebody’s phone number. It’s for court purposes. That’s why it’s on there and that’s what it will be used for.”

Boyd said many times drivers who do not have updated information on their licenses wind up paying for it in the end because they don’t receive court notifications.

“It is possible that a person could get their license suspended, and they not know it because (the court) couldn’t contact that person,” Boyd said.

“Now, they’ll be able to get in contact with someone if something changes in regards to their case.”

Boyd said if a driver has been pulled over since July and not been asked for their personal contact information, it’s because their officer didn’t have the new citation forms.

“What we’re doing is we’re phasing out the old citations we’re going to save money.

“Gradually, officers will start getting the new tickets and asking for that information.”

Some officers are already using the new forms.

Boyd said, to his knowledge, officers asking for the new information haven’t gotten negative responses when they asked for contact information because they are trying to inform the public when they stop them.

“So far, we haven’t had any issues. We’re trying to get out and explain on the road as we go along. Everyone will be told about it eventually.”

By Emily Ham

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