"Cops" show last night - Page 3

I am a full time law enforcement officer in an urban city in the North East. We have had pursuit guide lines in effect in our jurisdiction since the mid 1980's. As stated before too many citizens have been seriously hurt or injured during police chases. For example if a homicide suspect is being pursued the chase will not likely be terminated. If a stolen car is being pursued the chase will most likely be terminated. In this age of liability there is no need for a find and bite K9. If the suspect is not fleeing, why would you want the K9 to bite unprovoked? If the suspect moves during the sit and bark the K9 is to do its job. No offence to anyone but this is a training issue that requires time and an experienced handler. If a K9 is to be deployed on the street it Must know an out command, call off, and down/platz. This is basic stuff. If the K9 does not know these 3 things, the team is a liability and unreliable. Which places an entire K9 unit at risk? If anyone disagrees with this they should really raise their expectations for their K9 teams. Kyle

Kyle your right, that is basic stuff. Unfortunatly allot of handlers can't train a dog to be reliable. This is where the problem is. It takes a lot of time, $, and training to make this happen, between dog and handler. Unfortunatly less and less departments are willing to make sure this happens. Handlers need to be self reliant and sufficient in most cases. Pay your own training fees and get your dog to training, on your time off. I can't say most, but allot of these K-9handlers are in it for the extra $, not to do a bang up job. This is where I think policy needs to change. Somehow they need to weeds out the guys that aren't doing it for the love of the dog and working with a dog.

4pack, I know where you are coming from with the funding issue. It’s also a problem with the handler not being a properly motivated. Anyone involved in Law enforcement knows the bureaucratic issues with funding. It’s much cheaper to properly train and maintain a K9 unit compared to settling lawsuits due to wrong bites. Just ask the Baltimore County K9 unit in Maryland. The other problem in law enforcement is the attitude that cops are an authority on everything. It’s been my experience that civilian trainers have better ideas on grip development and problem solving. If you question a cop on anything they will say, I’ve been doing this for X amount of time and this is the best way. I usually respond with, just because you have been doing something for a long time, does not mean you have been doing it right. Kyle

LOL true. I am so glad my cop friend was a trainer first!

Kyle-- A topic that never seems to come up here is the attitude of non-K9 officers concerning the dogs. Many police are not comfortable around dogs in general--I see this in my own neighborhood. If the police are going to utilize K9 handlers and their dogs, then maybe it might be beneficial that courses are given to educate all the police and ensure these dogs are not at risk by their fellow compadres.

Kyle, Bark and hold looks so nice, but how many people do you know that are not decoys or K-9 officers that can stand perfectly still while the dog is doing Bark and Hold. We have officers that are told to stay perfectly still and they end up moveing or flinching during the bark and hold and get bit. Looks nice for Demos but I prefer a call off dog. We have had good sucess in call offs even being able to call off the dog with the decoy still running away. This also gives us the ability to send the dog on a passive person if situation dictates it. We have had numerous situations where the person has a weapon, refuses to drop it, are standing still yelling for us to shoot them. So a bite and hold dog that can be called off comes in play here. As far as pursuit policies, I am talking zero pursuit. Not a policy governing pursuit which are needed. Zero Pursuit, bank robber, rapeist, murderer, No pursuit. I am talking fear of liability and viloteing rights outweighing public safety if that criminal remains at large.

LMH, its imperative that patrol units working with a K9 unit know how to respond with deployed K9's. This is also a handler issue. You do not release a dog into an active foot pursiut and expect the K9 to know who is the bad guy. To the K9, everyone running is a target. The K9 thinks he's won the lottery, who do I grip first. K9 knowledege can easily be relayed during a shift roll call. Accidents happen when poor preparation and communication are part of a program. EDD, if you are using untrained patrol personnel for decoys, accidents are bound to happen. Untrained decoys are no benefit to any K9 program. If the suspect moved when ordered to stand still the bite is justified. Training a K9 to grip a passive aggressive suspect is a nice tool. This same K9 can do a clean sit and bark. Once again this is a training issue coupled with time constraints. Kyle

I don't agree at all that everydog should be a hold and bark--I guess that low life that shot those Florida deputies --one being a k9 officer--desevered just a hold and bark. People saying this don't understand what police are going through when they have to track dangerous criminals or doing building searches looking for the person that broke in. When a person commits a Felony I fully believe the dog should be able to go in and bite if the criminal does not give up or refuses to show their hands.

Thank You k9neiko!

k9neiko, As a regular citizen I totally agree with you. unfortunately as long as the human rights activists continues holding our government by the balls criminals will have more rights than any one of us.. Next thing that they will do is successfully abolish the death penalty because in their thick heads that current method is too inhumane and causes pain to the inmate, even know they've been convicted of a harsh crime that even freightends the toughest people who step into the crime scene that the inmate had caused. IMO anyone who commits a felony should not be able to sue, even if they received an injury by law enforcements. I also believe that tax payers should not pay any kind of medical bills that the suspect received... He/she should pay his/hers own bills!