Using his sense of smell along with his teeth, a Sparks K-9 police officer is being credited with catching a hiding suspect who authorities say had run from them and into a trailer storage yard Saturday.

The Sparks K-9 officer is identified as Rocky, a Belgian Malinois from the Netherlands, who joined the Sparks Police Department in September 2005, along with Cimbo, a German shepherd.

The suspect, being pursued on foot as part of a stolen vehicle investigation, was named by Sparks police as Duane Randall, address unknown.

“Officers were unable to see where Randall was hiding,” Sgt. Marlene Cleveland said via news release. “Several verbal commands were given for Randall to come out from under the trailer or the K-9 (Rocky) would be sent after him. Randall refused to obey the officer’s commands, and the K-9 was sent to apprehend him.”

“The K-9 was able to pull Randall from his hiding place by biting Randall on the left arm,” Cleveland said. “Randall soon became compliant and the K-9 was called back. Officers were able to detain Randall without further incident.”

Just a short time earlier, a perimeter had been established with the Rocky assisting with the search of the yard off Franklin Way.

Saturday’s events started unfolding shortly before 10:30 a.m.
Sparks officers had been flagged down by a person whose vehicle had been stolen in the area of East Greg Street and Franklin Way in Sparks, Sgt. Cleveland reported. At the same time, the victim was on the phone with 911 advising that he had located his stolen vehicle and that he had followed it.

The suspect, later identified Randall, was last seen running from the scene in an unknown direction, police said.

“Officers searched the area and were able to locate fresh footprints in the snow near 1750 Franklin,” Cleveland said.

The footprints led officers to an opening in the chain linked fence into the trailer storage yard, she said. “Officers also located items which Randall was discarding from his pockets as he ran. Some of those items were unspent high powered rifle rounds.”

The person contacting authorities about the stolen vehicle was able to positively identify Randall as the person driving the stolen vehicle, police said. The person had reported the vehicle stolen from his Reno residence earlier in the day.

Randall was transported by REMSA to Northern Nevada Medical Center, where he was treated for non-life threatening injuries to his left arm. He was released from the hospital and booked into the Washoe County Jail on suspicion of a possession of stolen vehicle, obstructing, as well as several misdemeanor warrants, police said.

A CLOSER LOOK

Rocky, then 8, and Cimbo, 7 at the time were profiled last spring in Sparks Today and the RGJ after they were recognized by Sparks City Council.

Though they’ve been in Sparks a few years now, the police dogs are trained to respond mostly in the languages used in their native countries.

“Most of Rocky’s commands are in Dutch, and most of Cimbo’s are in a combination of Czech and German,” Rocky’s handler, Officer Jason Edmonson, said in the story. “We’re also able to use them, put them in situations that make it less dangerous on officers… .The dogs’ sense of smell is amazing, the narcotics they find… .”

“Without them, we’d be spending a lot more money on man-hours and overtime trying to get the job done,” Edmonson said.

The dogs are good at sniffing out illegal drugs and helping police on patrol find suspects.

Rocky and Cimbo are getting to be quite well-known in the Sparks area. As with mounted horse patrols in other communities, Sparks’ dynamic canine duo are popular with area residents.

“We do demos, especially for schools,” said Officer Glenn Marsh, who handles Cimbo. “Kids love seeing them. We have done demos for church groups and all kinds of groups. We try and go out to special events.

“We socialize our dogs a lot,” Marsh added. “We like the public to come up and say hi to the dogs, and see that they are not crazy dogs like a lot of people think. They are just a working a dog.”

By David Jacobs

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