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WPD K9 Mondo honored as Woodlander of the Month
Far more interested in a two-foot mammoth smoked bone than in the City and County officials gathered to honor him, Police Service Dog Mondo gratefully accepted his recognition as June’s “Woodlander of the Month.”
Mondo was selected to receive the award for his courageous apprehension of a suspected car thief last month.
According to his trainer and partner, Woodland Police K9 Officer Brian Olson, who was injured while taking the suspect into custody, Mondo would say “I was just doing my job like any other member of the police force.”
“We have honored a lot of great people as ‘Woodlander of the Month,’ said Yolo County Supervisor Matt Rexroad, one of the co-sponsors of the monthly award. “But without a doubt, Mondo is the coolest recipient we have ever had.”
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K9 officers from Oregon gather in Bay Area for training
NORTH BEND, Ore. – Nine-year old Black Lab Gracie is an old pro at searching for drugs.
She’s been with the North Bend Police Department since 2001, and is trained to detect narcotics in almost any situation.
But she and her handler Mike Olson are always training, to stay on top of their game.
All this week Gracie and Olson are joining other police K9 handlers from departments across the state who have come to train and learn with their dogs.
“We’ve got approximately 10 dogs here, different types, narcotics, search and rescue. We have Malinois , German Shepherds, Labradors, and also two Blood Hounds,” says North Bend Police Officer Bill Downing.
Chris Aycock is a Senior Master Instructor with the American Society of Canine Trainers, he travels around the nation, training K9′s and their handlers, in everything from narcotics tracking to search and rescue.
“There’s three main classes, survival, armed encounter survival, as well as an advancement for tracking and an advancement for narcotic,” says Aycock.
During the week, the handlers and K9′s have used trails, cars, and abandoned buildings to simulate real-life scenarios, including searching for drugs.
During the training, narcotics officers place narc bags in areas throughout buildings so that K9′s can train to search for drugs efficiently.
“It keeps the dogs proficient. We hide narcotics in different areas, ventilation, places that somebody would hide narcotics, simulating a house or a building, as well as vehicles,” says Downing.
Part of the training involves using officer involved situations that have actually happened.
“We’re taking scenarios that have played out across the nation, where K9 officers have been involved in shootings. we’re mimicking them in this situation so that the handlers can be taught how to run through them and what had gone wrong and how to avoid them,” says Aycock.
Downing adds, “This right here puts the fear factor in, lots of people can become complacent, this keeps you out of that complacency.”
And that’s a lesson that even an old pro like Gracie needs to study up on, to keep them one step ahead of the bad guys.
In Yonkers, concern over a shrinking police force
Detectives Eddie Armour, left, and Keith Olson, the Police Benevolent Association’s president and vice president, respectively.
AS a dozen Yonkers police officers celebrated their retirement at a party last month, more than 200 people rose to their feet while the Pipes & Drums Corps of the Police Emerald Society of Westchester performed a bagpipe version of “The Minstrel Boy.”
“You saw a lot of years of service walk in that door,” said Capt. William Cave, the commanding officer of the Yonkers Police Department and the master of ceremonies at the retirement party at the Polish Center here.
Those nine men and three women are among 35 Yonkers police officers who have retired in recent months, raising concern among some law enforcement and elected officials that the city will not have enough officers on the street at a time when the crime rate is edging up in some precincts.
With Yonkers facing a midyear projected shortfall of $16 million for the current fiscal year, and up to a $100 million budget gap in the fiscal year starting July 1, the mayor canceled a scheduled Police Academy class in January that would have trained recruits to fill the holes left by the wave of retirements.
“We have been decimated by the retirements,” said Detective Keith Olson, first vice president of the Police Benevolent Association, the union serving the Yonkers police. “We simply do not have enough cops.”
The department’s budgeted 641 police positions have declined to 606 in the last six months, said Edmund Hartnett, the police commissioner. While the number of officers on patrol duty has not decreased, the department has eliminated its burglary unit and school patrols.
Staffing is not the only challenge that the Yonkers police are facing. Since the early 1990s, some civil rights advocates have questioned the department’s handling of accusations of police brutality and the use of force during arrests.
Last year, a federal grand jury indicted a Yonkers police officer on charges of violating the civil rights of a 44-year-old woman by slamming her to the ground during an arrest. A hearing in the case is scheduled for this month, said Herbert Hadad, a spokesman for the United States attorney’s office.
Mr. Hartnett said staffing levels in the department had been a constant concern from the time he arrived as police commissioner in November 2006. “For two-plus years, all I’ve been hearing is that the Yonkers Police Department is too small to meet the needs of the city,” he said.
He added that he would favor “more police officers and a reasonable overtime budget” pending a more thorough assessment of the city’s needs.
Typically, police vacancies are filled with graduates of the Westchester County Police Academy in Valhalla, Mr. Hartnett said. The academy graduates two classes a year and supplies municipalities throughout Westchester, county officials said.
The commissioner said he was hopeful that the city would send recruits to the academy class scheduled to begin in July.
Mayor Philip A. Amicone did not respond to messages left with his spokesman, David Simpson, regarding that decision and other matters related to the police.
But others in the administration acknowledged the high number of vacancies. “We have about 35 vacancies right now, and that is considered high,” Deputy Mayor William T. Regan said.
Those enrolled in the 20 weeks of training at the Police Academy are paid at a starting rate of about $45,000 annually, said Lt. Diane Hessler, a spokeswoman for the commissioner. The cancellation of Yonkers’s January class, Commissioner Hartnett said, postponed training for recruits who would have replaced some of the recent retirees.
Late last year, the city also eliminated several police specialty units, including the burglary unit, the D.A.R.E. drug education unit and the school resource officer program, which placed officers in middle and high schools. About 40 officers from those units were redeployed to patrol duty in January, Lieutenant Hessler said.
The move was intended to help curb overtime, which has long hampered the city, Commissioner Hartnett and several City Council members said. Overtime in the Police, Fire and Public Works Departments cost nearly $9 million this fiscal year, city officials said in December when announcing program cuts to close the projected $16 million budget gap.
In his State of the City address late last month, Mayor Amicone said that cost-cutting measures had succeeded, essentially eliminating this fiscal year’s shortfall.
But the savings and recent retirements come at a time when statistics released by the police commissioner’s office show increases in violent crime, which includes murder, rape and robbery. There were 71 violent crimes committed in January 2009, compared with 62 in the same month last year, and 75 in February 2009, compared with 60 in February 2008.
Those increases were especially significant in the Third Precinct in southwestern Yonkers — 34 cases in January compared with 27 in January 2008, and 44 in February compared with 28 incidents in February 2008.
Sandy Annabi, the majority leader of the City Council, represents District 2, which includes the Third Precinct. Ms. Annabi, who has a degree in criminal justice, said the large number of police retirements only exacerbated what she called the pressing issue of police understaffing.
“We would have less need for that overtime if we were filling in the gaps that have long existed when it comes to the police,” she said. “Overtime is a Band-Aid effect, and we have to rip that Band-Aid off.”
Her view was shared by several of the retirees at the recent celebration at the Polish Center, including Anthony Casareale, 51, a patrol sergeant with 23 years of policing, 20 of them in Yonkers. For Sergeant Casareale, the decision to end his police career was a result of “working harder in a more dangerous environment,” he said, citing not only the elimination of specialty units but also the fact that because of the city’s efforts to curb overtime, foot patrols no longer follow minimum staffing levels.
“We are a 600-man department trying to do a job suited for 1,000,” he said.
The police force in Yonkers, whose population is about 200,000, is smaller than police departments in some municipalities of a similar size. For instance, the police department in Rochester (population 207,000) has more than 800 employees and the department in Orlando, Fla. (population nearly 230,000), has more than 1,000.
Within Westchester, however, the city leads by far in terms of police manpower: more than 600 compared with 250 for White Plains (population 57,000) and 195 for Mount Vernon (population 68,000).
To more accurately determine the staffing needs of the Yonkers Police Department, the mayor’s office and the City Council are backing an independent study of the Fire and Police Departments.
“We know we’re in trouble,” said Councilwoman Joan Gronowski, whose district includes portions of the Third and Fourth Police Precincts, where some types of crime are rising.
Ms. Gronowski, who introduced the resolution to the staffing study of the Police and Fire Departments, said such an assessment was long overdue and would provide the analysis needed to determine whether the police need to augment their numbers beyond the current allotment.
Mr. Hartnett agreed, saying that the last time the city conducted a similar survey was in 1988. “I would like to see the study done,” he said. “It’s long overdue.”
The life of an off-duty police dog
Maria Baca, Star Tribune Blaine officer Greg Rowe and his daughter, Kayla, played with Gunner. Kayla, 13, helps care for him, but he is primarily a working dog, not a pet.
During work hours, Gunner is Blaine police officer Greg Rowe’s partner. The rest of the day, Gunner is Rowe’s dog.
Since June, Rowe and Gunner, a nearly 2-year-old German shepherd, have cruised Blaine each night as the city’s first K-9 team since the 1970s.
The K9 program was brought back this year as part of a department expansion that’s gone along with Blaine’s expansion, said interim Police Chief Chris Olson, who added that the department would like to add at least two more K9 teams to cover the clock.
The officer and his dog share an obvious bond, born of days of training and long, dark hours sharing a graveyard shift punctuated by bursts of activity. Seven months into their partnership, Gunner still is settling into home life with Rowe’s wife, Janet Running Rowe, and daughter, Kayla (plus two other dogs, a cat and a fish), where the relationship is a bit more complicated.
Council considers stun gun purchase for Sandwich PD
On-duty police officers in Sandwich soon may be armed with high-voltage stun guns.
Police Chief Rick Olson and two of his officers presented the Sandwich City Council with information about the nonlethal weapons during a committee as a whole meeting Monday.
Sheriff’s office receives Patriot Award
Carver County Sheriff Byron ‘Bud’ Olson announces the Sheriff’s Office has received a Patriot Award from the Minnesota Committee for Employer Support of the Guard and Reserve. The award recognizes Sheriff Olson and the Carver County Sheriff’s Office as a Patriotic Employer for contributing to National Security and Protecting Liberty and Freedom by supporting employee participation in America’s National Guard and Reserve Force. The award was recommended by Reserve Staff Sergeant Michael Palmer who is currently on military leave from the Sheriff’s Office to serve in Operation Iraqi Freedom. Supportive employers are critical to maintaining the strength and readiness of our National Guard and Reserve units. This award recognizes deserving employers whose goodwill and ongoing support are important to retaining highly skilled, dedicated and qualified members of the Guard and Reserve. “We are very proud of Mike Palmer for what he does as an employee of the Sheriff’s Office, as well as his service to our country through his work with the Reserves” said Sheriff Olson. This is the second Patriotic Employer Award the Sheriff’s Office has received. In 2007 the Sheriff’s Office was recommended, when two Deputy Sheriff’s were deployed to serve in Iraq. Both have since returned to their duties in the County.
