Latest / Murders to Music: Crime Scene to Music Scene (Streamline Events and Entertainment) / SnapShot- From Badass to Embarrassment: My K9's First Deployment

Transcript

SnapShot- From Badass to Embarrassment: My K9's First Deployment · Murders to Music: Crime Scene to Music Scene (Streamline Events and Entertainment)

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to a Murders to Music Snapshot.
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: So here's what I want to tell you about.
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: I want to tell you that not every time you think you look badass in a uniform and you're tough and you roll up and you've got command presence.
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: Well, all that goes to crap sometimes.
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: I want to tell you about it.
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: So I'm going to take you back to 2007, 2008.
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: See, in 2006, I was working for the Alaska Bureau of Alcohol and Drug Enforcement as an undercover drug detective.
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: Then I started to write a petition to get a police canine for our department and in 2006, 2007, I wrote that it got approved.
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: I got my dog in 2007, and I went off to the Canine Academy.
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: The Canine Academy.
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: Now there is something prideful not right or wrong, probably wrong but about driving the car that says canine and having canine on the back of your bulletproof vest and knowing you've got a dog there.
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: And even if you don't know what you're doing with that dog, you still just have this command presence and there's a force multiplier, meaning that when I show up with my dog, it's like having 10 police officers show up, because people are scared and respect that dog and they don't know what it can do.
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: Is it a patrol dog?
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: Is it a drug dog?
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: They really don't know.
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: Well, my dog's name was Chevron.
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: Chevron was a German shepherd out of Germany that's where German shepherds come from and he was a dual purpose dog.
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: So he did drug work and he did patrol work.
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: That means he would find your marijuana or your cocaine or your meth and he would bite you if you did something stupid.
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: So getting this dog is a complete life change.
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: Bringing the dog into the house, bringing the dog around the family, is something that you have to introduce slowly, because after going to the academy with this dog, this dog sees you as the master and anybody that tries to hurt you, play with you, hit you on the back as a love pet.
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: The dog might see that as a form of aggression and all of a sudden, this person's wearing a 90 pound fur coat.
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: You know, and those are the types of things you want to try to avoid, right and uh.
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: Then introducing the dog to your personal dog.
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: We had to get rid of our personal dog.
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: If we go on vacation, this dog went with us.
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: If I went out of town for the weekend, the dog went with us.
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: He was always there by my side and that was awesome for the working relationship.
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: But really I didn't like the dog.
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: The dog was too much animal.
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: He would go a hundred miles an hour a hundred percent of the time, and unless he was under command and then it was no fun, because then he's just doing what he's told and he's got all this internal anxiety and wants to get out and do something Right.
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: So we're on patrol one night and we get a call of a domestic violence case.
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: We get a call that there's a guy who's beat up his girlfriend and he has fled on foot.
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: And this is the type of call that canine officers dream about, because we have the ability and we have a tool that can track that guy on foot through the woods for miles and find him hiding underneath some canoe or in a dumpster.
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: So this, to me, is exciting.
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: Now let me paint the picture.
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: I'm on night shift patrol.
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: I'm working with one other officer who doesn't really like me.
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: This guy doesn't like himself and that's a problem because it makes it tough.
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: So he gets dispatched to this domestic violence call.
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: It's late at night, 10 o'clock, 11 o'clock at night, and we get to.
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: We find out that this guy's fled on foot.
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: So we figure out where he's went.
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: He may be at a neighbor's house.
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: We go to the neighbor's house and, sure enough, he comes out.
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: That's where he's at.
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: So I'm kind of depressed.
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: I didn't get to use the dog, but we're going to take this guy into custody for a felony domestic violence situation.
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: And, uh, I've got my dog in the car and I'm like man, this guy could fight.
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: There's two of us.
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: This would be a great time for me to bring the dog out and down the dog, make the dog lay down and just look and look intimidating and bark and do what he does.
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: So I get the dog out of the car and I put him down by my side and the other officer um, that guy, he is talking to the suspect and he tells the suspect you're under arrest.
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: And the suspect looks at my dog, looks at me and takes off running and I'm like this is amazing.
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: This is exactly what I wanted to have happen Now, all my hard work.
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: I get to show off for my partner here who hates my guts, but I get to show off for him.
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: I get to make the arrest my partner here who hates my guts, but I get to show off for him.
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: I get to make the arrest.
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: Life is going to be good.
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: Bad guy takes off into the woods, turns left onto this game trail and he's deep into the forest.
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: I send my dog.
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: He takes off.
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: My dog goes, boom, he hits the corner like he's supposed to.
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: Now he's in the woods and I'm calling for him.
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: Chevron, good boy, good boy, good boy.
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: And I'm chasing him.
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: My dog is off lead, so he's running way faster than I am.
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: I am not built for speed.
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: I find myself in the middle of the woods for tactical reasons.
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: We don't want to be using flashlights because we don't want the bad guy to know where we are in case he's got a gun.
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: So we're.
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: I'm walking through the woods in the dark, I'm trying to listen for clues.
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: I'm listening for my dog barking.
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: I'm listening for this guy screaming because my dog is going to run faster, and when he bites him, bad guy's going to scream because it's going to hurt.
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: All these things are going on in my head.
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: I am nervous, as can be.
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: I am excited.
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: It's the first time I've ever got to deploy my dog and I'm in the woods, and it's everything that I trained for.
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: So I'm waiting and I don't hear the guy screaming.
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: I don't hear my dog, it's silent.
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: Well, did my dog get hurt?
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: Did he kill my dog?
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: All these things are going through my head.
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: So my dog wears a power collar, meaning he has shot collar.
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: So I start recalling my dog here, chevron, here.
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: He's not coming back.
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: So I start powering him.
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: Powering him and calling him.
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: He's going to be a corrective to bring him back to me.
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: I'm powering the crap out of him.
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: I know it's reaching him because he's not that far away.
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: I just don't know where he is and he's not coming back.
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: So I'm like man, this sucks.
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: So I spend the next 10, 15 minutes walking around the woods.
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: I don't have a suspect, I don't have a dog, I don't have a bite.
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: I'm starting to feel a little bit like a dork and I'm calling my dog and he's not getting.
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: I'm not getting him back.
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: Well, about that time we get a 911 call from a neighborhood nearby that says hey, there's this wild dog running around our yard chasing people trying to bite them, and he's knocked over a horse fence and people can't get away from him, and so on and so forth.
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: And I'm like man, somebody should keep their.
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: I'm like, holy shit, that's my dog.
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: So I go to this house and this house happens to be where I parked my police car.
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: So the dog in the last 15 minutes has circled through the woods, made a big loop all the way back to my police car and when I get back my dog is sitting inside my police car with the open rear door.
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: He does not have a suspect in his mouth, he doesn't have any blood on him.
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: He has just been out on a runaround.
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: So I put the dog away and I'm like man now what?
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: I don't know if I got a guy in the woods that's been bit.
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: I don't know where the suspect is.
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: My dog did not do what he was supposed to do.
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: So I go back to the drawing board and I try to figure out what I did wrong.
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: And I don't figure anything out.
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: At this point I have totally embarrassed myself.
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: I'm an embarrassment to my family name.
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: My dad has disowned me and my mom God bless her soul in heaven.
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: She's looking down thinking what in the hell did I raise?
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: That's what is going through my mind in this moment.
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: The next day comes and I'm on shift.
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: It's in the afternoon it's daylight outside and somebody calls up and says hey, the suspect you're looking for is hiding in a house in this neighborhood, at this house.
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: And bet, I got this.
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: So I go to the house and I don't take my dog this time, because he failed me the first time and I don't trust him.
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: So I go in the house and good old fashioned police work, find the stairwell, start screaming, yell and tell him to come out with his hands up, challenging him.
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: The guy comes out and take him into custody.
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: So I want to know what happened with my dog.
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: I want to know why my dog, did my dog, bite him.
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: And I so I say did you get bit last night?
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: No, I didn't get bit and I'm like all right, can you tell me what happened?
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: He's like yeah, your dog, he's terrible.
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: He says he chased me into the woods.
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: He found me, he wanted to play, he grabbed a stick and brought me a stick.
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: He's like so I'm trying to hide under this canoe, but I can't, because your dog keeps coming and he keeps hitting me with a stick and dropping the stick.
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: He says so I picked the stick up and I throw the stick and your dog chases the stick and he picks the stick up and he brings the stick back.
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: He's like I played fetch with your dog for 15 minutes and then, finally, I just ignored him, and I ignored him long enough that he walked away.
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: He says you walked right by me.
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: I heard you walking by the canoe calling for your dog.
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: He says but your dog had been long gone by that time and I'm like so you're telling me my dog played fetch with you instead of biting you, he says yeah, I'm like man.
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: Remember that how badass I felt in the beginning.
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: I feel like a complete loser at this point, so had to take the dog back to training, had to train him not to chase sticks and uh, you live and learn.
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: Right, that's what happened.
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: So that was my first canine deployment.
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: Thought I was cool.
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: Thought I was all this and a side of chips and at the end of the day I was like Harvey Milk Toast.
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: It just sucked, but it's the price of doing business right.
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: So not everything you see is cool.
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: Not every time you see those canine handlers out there, you're like man.
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: Those guys are badass and tough.
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: No, their dogs do stupid shit too.
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: That's it.
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: That's the end of the story and that is a Merged Music Snapshot.