Virtual Ridealong

A Day in the Life of a Graveyard Shift Officer

2009-06-14T17:26:59Z

When working the night shift, the term “graveyard” comes to mind. Even though the term seems morbid, according to the battery of officers I spoke with, it wasn’t so bad.

In law enforcement, the night shift is usually between the hours of 9 p.m. to 7 a.m. This shift deals with a whole different sub-culture than that of the day shift. Not only is the clientele different, so are the crimes that they commit. Most crime escalates during the night, and when you add a full moon, it is even more of a circus. Medical personnel also agree that a full moon contributes to busier shifts.

Some people prefer the night shift, especially those with children. What other shift can one work where they see their children off to school, pick them up, be there for dinner, and leave around bedtime.

One of the negative aspects to working the night shift is the sleeping. You can line your windows with foil, turn the white noise on, wear an eye cover and turn off the telephone; but it takes some getting used to. One officer I spoke with said that he used to put a mattress in his closet so that it would be dark enough to sleep. Another said that he hung a blanket and made a tent around his bed every morning.

Officer Donald Schumacher has worked the night shift for five years. He says that the graveyard shift is the best shift to work as an officer. There is less traffic, tighter team camaraderie cooler nights, and a good balance of calls for service versus time to do other things like traffic stops.

Officer Schumacher says, “Graves has its own variety of crime. There are different types of crimes that occur on the night shift.” He then said that night shift is difficult on everything including weight loss, sleep deprivation, and hard on the significant other. He then added, “ I belong to a very exclusive group of people who get to end their day with the sun coming up, and I have always been very proud of that.”

Sergeant Chris Taylor worked the night shift for three years. When asked what helped him sleep during the day, Sergeant Taylor said that working out helped. “I’d work out really hard after my shift. I’d then drive home and fall into bed.” Sergeant Taylor added, “ As a police officer, there was a lot to do on graveyard. The hard thing about the night shift is never seeing the sun.”

Sergeant Patrick Kohles works the night shift in the east area. He says, “I think it (nightshift) is the best work in the department if you have to work patrol. The work is fun. I also think the teams are a lot closer with one another because we don’t have access to many of the other resources that are available on other watches. The officers and supervisors develop a stronger bond with one another, which often carries over into their personal lives.”

Sergeant Kohles said that he personally doesn’t have any issues with the sleeping itself, but says that sleeping during the day during the work week, then resuming “normal” sleep schedules on his days off, is hard on sleep patterns. He adds, “Overall police work is a wonderful and gratifying career. It allows you to help people who are sometimes less fortunate and might be down on their luck.”

The overall consensus with most officers I spoke with agreed that what you lose in sleep, you gain in job satisfaction.

Behind the Tape - A Day in the Life of a Homicide Detective

2009-05-11T03:02:10Z

Some detectives refer to working homicide as being at the top of their game, and if you make it to homicide, you are one of the elite. Imagine walking into a crime scene with limited information, where there is nothing but a dead body, and the “victim” can’t tell you what happened. In absence of the victim’s testimony, it is the homicide detective’s job to investigate the physical and forensic evidence, and witness statements, to solve the ultimate puzzle, both past and present, and put the case to rest.

Detective Pete Willover is an icon and veteran detective with the Sacramento Police Department. He retired in 2005, but didn’t stay away. He now works as a reserve detective in the department’s cold case unit solving sexual assaults. During his 42-year career, Willover has worked on and solved hundreds of homicide and sexual assault cases. He has been recognized across the country and featured on many crime programs.

I caught up with Detective Willover in his office. We discussed a 1977 homicide/sexual assault case involving a 15-year-old girl that had been reported missing. Penny Parker was reported missing after she didn’t make it home from her Sacramento Bee newspaper delivery job. Her body was discovered about 15 miles from where she was last seen in an underdeveloped area in Del Paso Heights. She had been stabbed and strangled, and there was evidence she had been sexually assaulted. “It was a pretty high profile case,” Willover said. Through months of investigation, he spoke with various suspects. One man stood out in particular. He was called in for a polygraph test, which he passed. With no concrete suspects, the case was filed.

“It wasn’t until the advent of DNA testing that we were able to find a match” Willover said. We looked at the same suspect from the 70s that took the polygraph test. He had since moved to Arkansas. I contacted his family here in Sacramento and obtained a DNA sample from one of his kids. It was a 90% match. We went to Arkansas and contacted the same suspect and obtained his DNA which led to a match. I then got an arrest warrant. When the Arkansas police were in the commission of arresting him, he killed himself.”

Willover was very passionate when he spoke about the Penny Parker case. I asked him if let himself get emotionally involved in his cases. He said, “On several occasions, especially when you handle the case from the beginning, you tend to become attached. I even put a photo of the victim on the front page of the case to give it a personal touch. Working a case is demanding and time consuming. I can’t put it down and walk away for the weekend. In the past, I was working without voicemail and computers. Now I email and leave voice messages for myself all the time when I get an idea to check something out. Even with all the demands, the rewards far outweigh the disadvantages.”

Now that there are more realistic television shows about crime such as “True Crime,” “CSI,” and “Cold Case,” Willover informed me that he has received calls from victims’ adult children who want him to look into cases from the 80s involving their family members. He said that he has been looking into a few cases for DNA evidence. Now, cases that were once suspended in mid-air are being solved.

Eric Schneider has been a detective in homicide for the past four years. I spoke with him about a currently unsolved homicide he has been working involving victim Belen Pacheco. She was a 47-year-old Hispanic woman who was a hard working janitor at the building located at 555 Capitol. She also took care of her elderly mother on her time off. Schneider stated that this homicide, even though unsolved, is one of the most memorable cases. He said, “Pacheco was a truly innocent victim. Most often times when you investigate a homicide, you find that the victim was involved with risky lifestyle behaviors such as drugs, gangs, prostitution which lead to their demise. In this case, she was last seen by security leaving her job to go home. This was in June 2006. Her body was discovered approximately 6 weeks later, badly decomposed. My then partner, Natalie Medeiros, and I were able to use some resources that were new to us. We consulted the expertise of forensic anthropologists from the University of Santa Cruz’ Anthropology Department. They were able to study Pacheco’s bones for any clues. We also solicited the assistance of Dr. Kimsey, a U.C. Davis Forensic Entomologist, who studies insects relating to decomposition of a human body. Even with all that, we still continue looking for leads. There just isn’t any physical evidence to follow. It is very frustrating because you want to find some closure.”

When asked what he thought the most difficult part of being a homicide detective was, Schneider said, “The biggest factor for me is the long hours. I remember a time when I was on-call, I laid down at 10:00 p.m. thinking I was going to get some decent sleep. My telephone rang 15 minutes later and I was up for the next two days. It happens. I find the most positive part of my job was working with my partner Natalie. She’s my best friend on the department, and working with your best friend, and doing a job you like to do is great.”

I noticed an unusually large, Costco-sized box of Wheat Thins on Schneider’s desk. I asked him if he really liked Wheat Thins. He told me, “It’s an office joke. I had a full box of Wheat Thins on my desk. A couple of other homicide detectives who were working through the night got a little hungry. They saw my box of crackers and decided to help themselves, which wouldn’t have been a big deal other than the fact that they put the box back on my desk with one cracker left. When I came in the next day, I sat down at my desk with my sandwich and reached for my box of Wheat Thins. I was really looking forward to having some crackers with my sandwich. When I saw that there was only one left, I went sideways. My ranting was heard by all in other detective divisions as well. Needless to say, my box of crackers was replaced and now we laugh about it.”

It’s the little things that can matter when you’re dealing with serious subjects like homicides around the clock!

There is much more to working a homicide case than just finding out who did it. It is the small detailed information that can make or break a case. For instance, not only do the reports need to be precise and concise, but each lead needs to be exhausted whether it points to a dead end or not. It is up to these detectives to separate fact from fiction. Working with the district attorneys to complete the chain in the justice system is another factor.

I spoke with Detective Jason Kirtlan of the Sacramento Police Department’s Homicide Division. Kirtlan has been in homicide for 1 ½ years. His most recent case was the Rodrigo Rodriguez, Jr. case where he was shot outside a Martin Luther King Boulevard barber shop. Detective Kirtlan made an arrest and believes that Rodrigo Rodriguez, Jr. was a case of mistaken identity. It appears that the suspect intended to shoot an individual that resembled Rodriguez.

I asked Kirtlan what he thought about working in the homicide unit. He said, “Each case is unique. Each case takes you on a different avenue. Each person involved knows someone who knows information about the case, who knows someone else, and so on, and so on. Here’s another surprise. Sometimes, people lie to detectives. It is really rewarding when you are able to break the news to the family that you have arrested a suspect for the killing of their loved one.”

When I asked Kirtlan what he thought was one of the hardest parts of the job, he said, “Maintaining a balance between my family and the job is difficult. Being able to do the right thing at work and being the father I want to be is tough.”

When speaking to these and other detectives, it was apparent that each detective brings something unique to the unit to complement the division. Each detective has a story to tell, and each is always trying to solve the ultimate puzzle.

A Day In the Life of a Hostage Negotiator

2009-05-04T04:56:13Z

It’s a typical evening on patrol until officers are dispatched to a call where a man said he is going to kill his wife and then himself. Dispatchers immediately begin mediating with the eerily calm man while they dispatch a small army to the call, including negotiators. Once on scene, hostage negotiators begin doing their job. It is almost like watching a waltz, methodical and arranged. Over the course of several hours, the suspect spoke with negotiators. He ultimately ended up killing his wife, but had a request of negotiators before he surrendered. He asked if he could have a beer before he came out. Officers granted his request and placed the beer in the middle of the street and illuminated it. The whole scene was similar to the initial lighting of the official Christmas tree in front of the Nation’s Capital. Being one of the officers on the perimeter of this scene gave me an appreciation of our department’s critical incident negotiators.

I spoke with several core members of the Sacramento Police Department’s Negotiations Team. Even though I spoke with each member individually, they all had the same basic sentiments about each other. The members of the core group with whom I spoke were Sergeants Tim Hunter, Doug Voska, Glen Faulkner, Detective Ben Gomez, and Officer Ben Louie. I was able to speak with them about some of their experiences.

“When you are working a hostage or crisis negotiation, you need to have patience and humility. You need to check your ego at the door,” Sergeant Tim Hunter said. Hunter is one of the senior hostage negotiators on the Sacramento Police Department. He has been a negotiator since 1992, teaches crisis negotiations throughout the state, and is a board member with the State Board of California Association of Hostage Negotiators (CAHN). He knows first hand how to handle desperate and distraught people.

Hunter told me about a 1996 case in which he was the lead negotiator. “The call originated from a house at Valley Hi Drive and Center Parkway. It was a domestic violence call where a man who couldn’t let go of his ex-girlfriend was getting hostile. Just before 7:00 p.m., the suspect forced the victim into a vehicle at gunpoint, and began driving. Officers got into a long pursuit with the suspect which ended up in the Bay Area. I had cell phone contact with him initially, but lost contact. The cell phone technology and range wasn’t what it is today. The pursuit ended up on a dead end street in San Mateo. He forced his girlfriend out of the vehicle and kicked in a door of a house, and took two more innocent hostages. The negotiations continued into the night. The suspect used the hostage’s telephone to communicate with San Mateo negotiators. My team learned that the hostage taker was suicidal and had extensive plans laid out indicating he was going to kill himself. Finally, at about 11:00 a.m. the next day, after letting his hostages go, he ended up shooting himself.”

Hunter relayed that it was very maddening for him and his negotiations team when they lost the initial cell phone contact. He said, “Everyone got frustrated. The hostage negotiation team got frustrated because we couldn’t communicate with the suspect, the cell phone company wouldn’t cooperate with us, and the suspect got mad and started shooting at passing cars because we couldn’t talk to him. Luckily, no one was hurt.”

Sacramento has had its fair share of high profile crisis negotiations situations. One specific case was the 1991 “Good Guys” incident where multiple gunmen took dozens of innocent victims hostage over the course of several hours. This incident was covered over the entire country. But on a day-to-day basis, most of the negotiations involve barricaded subject and suicide attempts. One such incident was in September of 2006 when a man was despondent about not being able to see his fiancé (who lived in Australia), and said that he wanted to end it all by jumping off the Howe Avenue Bridge into Highway 50 freeway traffic.

Hunter was immediately called to the scene to talk him down. Hunter spoke with the man for over three hours while holiday traffic stood still, backing up for miles. Not only did negotiators have to deal with him, but they also had to deal with impatient motorists yelling out to the man to, “Just jump and get it over with so we can move.”

From a logistical standpoint Sergeant Glen Faulkner explained that his job as a sergeant on the team is to constantly manage resources, while listening to the radio communications from dispatchers, and keeping constant contact with his negotiations team and his supervisors. He says, “I need to get my people on the ground as soon as possible and start setting up a location, gather intelligence, and ultimately establish contact to begin negotiating with the individual. Because I typically play the role of the resource manager, I don’t often get the opportunity to take the role of the primary negotiator. We have our experts. We have the Tim Hunters, the Doug Voskas, the Ben Louies and the Ben Gomezs for that.”

Faulkner was on the scene of the Howe Avenue Bridge incident. He spoke about some of the problems that negotiators had at that scene. “First of all, it was a holiday and the freeway was full of travelers. We had to close all lanes of the freeway for three hours because the desperate man was standing on an 18” wide metal band on the outside of the bridge, and he was walking back and forth over several lanes of the freeway. We diverted traffic over the bridge and allowed traffic to get back onto the freeway going the opposite direction. What compounded the problem is when every third car that got back onto the freeway was yelling for the man to ‘jump.’ Every time someone told him to jump, his attention went from us, onto the passing car. It was hard to maintain control in this situation. What’s most important to remember is that this is not a sprint, it is a marathon. It takes time.”

Detective Ben Gomez has been a negotiator since 1995. He was on the same case with Hunter involving the despondent boyfriend who kidnapped his girlfriend. He said, “That case was really unique. I assisted Hunter from the Communications Center. That case was uncommon because there were several agencies involved and we lost cell communication with the suspect while driving through the mountainous areas near Tracy. We learned a lot about the limiting factors of using cell phones after that one.”

Gomez relayed his thoughts about another case that was memorable for him. It was a suicidal subject who had been aggressive with his mother and was tearing up their house. Gomez said, “I was the first negotiator on scene and when I pulled up, I saw the suspect standing on the porch with a knife threatening to kill himself. He was very angry and agitated. There had been many attempts from both family and law enforcement to calm him down and drop the knife to no avail. I began talking to him and was ultimately able to convince him to drop the knife and surrender peacefully.”

Gomez attributes his successes to all the training and experience he received over the years. He said, “I’m glad that we as negotiators are a viable option for patrol in ensuring that everyone involved is able to go home safely. As a negotiator, it is rewarding to help someone in a crisis by trying to get them to realize that there are further options other than violence.”

Not all incidents are resolved in a peaceful manner. Gomez said, “One of the most frustrating parts of the job is learning that a critical incident resulted in a loss of a citizen’s life. You always question what else we could have said or done.”

The Sacramento Police Department’s crisis negotiations team is a small but elite team. The duty of negotiators is a secondary duty to these officers’ primary jobs. I spoke to Officer Ben Louie who has been on the negotiations team for 23 years. He commented on how cohesive his team is today as opposed to when he first started. He said, “We are a tight team. We may make fun of each other and give each other a hard time, but when it is time to perform, we put the kidding aside. We are dedicated to the same goal.” Louie is very intense when he is negotiating, and his team mates speak very highly of him. It is obvious he is an anchor on the team.

I asked Louie what he thought some of the positive and negative aspects to his job were. He said, “You are often a sound board. Sometimes you are on the phone for hours with someone who just wants to rant and rave before you can start negotiations. Most often, it could take two, five, ten hours. You know patrol is on the perimeter wondering what you are doing while they are out in the cold or heat, hungry and tired. The positive aspects are abundant, especially if you are successful and no one gets hurt. So far, we’ve done very well.”

Negotiators complete an extensive training and certification process, and it takes someone with a certain personality; someone who can remain calm and rational in the face of chaos.

As Sergeant Doug Voska explained, “We are a tight team, and we know we can count on each other. It is rewarding being a part of the team.” Voska has been a crisis negotiator since 1997. He spoke about an incident in which he was the Negotiation Commander. The situation was a domestic violence call involving a man who was threatening his wife with a gun. The wife had attempted to hide the gun, but he found it, which angered him even more. He then began shooting at his wife as she ran from the residence. “What was most memorable about this case is that the man was 69 years old and his wife was 68. We had been speaking over the telephone for quite some time, but the subject seemed to be sabotaging our primary negotiator’s attempts to build any rapport with him. They mutually decided to hang up for a few minutes. While we were discussing our strategy, the subject he went out the front door and brandished a shotgun at SWAT officers. It was suicide by cop. You always second guess situations like that. Could we have said something more? Could we have said something better? The stakes are often high in our job. However, we are successful a whole lot more than we are unsuccessful. It’s rewarding when we can resolve critical incidents without the loss of a life and give suicidal people what they need to at least buy them another day.”

In speaking with all these sergeants, detectives and officers, I realized that their combined experience in negotiations is nearly 64 years. They are invaluable to the Sacramento Police Department, and their gift of the ability to persuade the most distressed person to surrender peacefully while staying composed are qualities they were born with.

Cops Don't Do Doughnuts!

2009-04-27T03:57:40Z

There is a stigma that police have incurred over the years. It has to do with “cops and doughnuts.” The two seem to go together like salt and pepper or dog and hydrant. Let me just clear this up right now. COPS DON’T EAT DOUGHNUTS! Well, maybe they used to.

This stems from the 60’s and 70’s before our 24-hour society. Doughnut shops were the only business open for night shift working officers. It was a warm place to sit and write a report, or get a cup of coffee. Several officers might stop in throughout the night, giving officers a stereotype. Here we are, 45 years later, and the stigma still remains. I once saw a bumper sticker that read, “Bad cop, no doughnut.” Funny.

Let us look at the origin of the doughnut. The doughy fritters originated in 16th century Holland. They were so greasy that the Dutch referred to them as “oily cakes.” They eventually made their way over here to America where we put a hole in the middle of them and fed them to the Army troops who then dubbed them “doughboys.” Per capita, Canada has the largest amount of doughnut shops in the world. Why is it that you never see a Mountie trotting around with a doughnut?

Most of the officers I work with and know are in good shape. Police Chief Rick Braziel is a great example. He recently qualified for the Boston Marathon, and is one of the best athletes I know with a body fat percentage of about 10. No doughnuts there. We have a number of athletes on this department from endurance runners to triathletes. No doughnuts there either.

I do run across doughnuts when there is a community event or an occasional officer training class where they are being offered in the morning. Someone with good intentions remembered the stigma and thought it would be a nice gesture.

I took an internal poll and asked two dozen officers if they eat doughnuts. One asked, “Does a bagel count?” No, bagels don’t count. Same shape but different kind of carbohydrate. All in all, there were only four who admitted to partaking in having a doughnut from time to time, but never made it a habit.

Someone asked me the other day if I was disappointed that “Krispy Kreme” closed shop in Sacramento. It’s all the same to me. A doughnut is a doughnut, and there are no good doughnuts.

So, you heard it here. Cops don’t really do doughnuts anymore. Most officers would be embarrassed to even park in front of a doughnut shop. Besides, most cops nowdays are health nuts and opt for smoothies and wheatgrass.

The Day in the Life of a K-9 Officer

2009-04-20T02:45:23Z

Here is an actual example of how it goes…Officer is on routine patrol. Officer runs a plate of an occupied vehicle with 3 subjects inside. The vehicle comes back stolen. Officers perform a vehicle stop. Car keeps going which turns into a pursuit. The pursuit continues for about 3-5 miles after which the subjects stop and bail out. Officer loses the driver who then calls for K9. Officers set up a perimeter and hold. They are waiting for the experts. Canines have the ability to detect scents from miles away. They have a scent cone that they follow until they find the area that is strongest. Once they find the strongest scent, they hit on it. Officers found two of the passengers and took them into custody. The driver was still outstanding. The driver thought he could ditch the K9 by hiding inside an industrial-sized BBQ outside of a Texas BBQ restaurant. The dog hit on the BBQ and was able to decipher the suspects smell amongst the ash, dried BBQ sauce and charcoal. When officers opened the top, he was hiding in the fetal position. He cried, “Don’t let that dog get me, I’ll do anything you want!”

They are the most loyal partners an officer could have. They don’t chatter or disagree, and they would take a bullet for their partner. They are the canine partners. The Sacramento Police Department currently has 11 dogs assigned. Nine of the dogs do routine patrol, and the other two are especially trained in ordnance (explosives), and narcotics.

The dogs that the Sacramento Police Department select are highly trained, and are chosen for their drive, temperament, working ability and physical soundness. Handlers continuously train the dogs at their new K9 training facility which is over an acre in size. It includes a 15,000 sq. ft. training field for obedience, control work, and apprehension training along with an area for a new challenging agility/obstacle course, yet to be built. Adjacent to the field is a large paved area that can be utilized for K9 training involving code 3 (red lights and siren) driving, felony vehicle stops, and vehicle retention and deployment training. We are also working on acquiring donated vehicles and building structures for narcotics and explosives detection and search training. It is at this facility that the K9s and their handlers will train in as realistic conditions as possible so that they can better perform out on the streets of Sacramento.

Officer Rick Osborn has been with the Sacramento Police Department since October 1979. He is the most veteran officer in the unit, who started his tenure as a K9 officer in 1987, and has had three K9 partners; Koda, Devo, and his current partner, Jerry Lee. He told me about a burglary call he responded to at downtown business. The suspect had smashed a window of an “adult” clothing store. After several announcements to clear out, Devo was sent in. Devo began biting a mannequin lying on the floor. Officer Osborn began to call Devo away from the mannequin and scolded him when, to his surprise, the “mannequin” began to scream. The suspect had taken off his clothes, and put on a short skirt and halter top. He then lay down on the ground and pretended to be a mannequin that had fallen over.

Rollo is the first Dutch Shepherd our department has used. Coincidently, his partner, Officer Linda Matthew is our first female K9 handler. Linda says of Rollo, “When I first got him, I was a little unsure of him. He doesn’t look like your typical police dog, like the other big, German Shepherds. He only weighed 56 pounds and looked like a cross between a ‘dingo’ and a ‘jackal.’ His face was small and he had these huge ears that didn’t fit his head. Besides handlers who are familiar with this breed, no one knew what he was. Not only am I the only girl in the unit, I’m the only one with a goofy looking dog. Now I have fun with it and tell people that he is a German Coyote, or an American Jackal.”

Matthews adds, “Being a K9 handler is definitely not a glamorous job. A ‘normal’ day for me now, is being covered in dog hair within the first five minutes of my shift, driving a car that smells like a wet dog in the winter, and often having dried dog slobber on my uniform. I routinely clean up vomit (Rollo gets carsick if I take corners too fast), pick dog hair out of my Starbucks, and have to listen to my partner bark in my ear all night. In the summer my partner drools on me when he is panting and in the winter he intentionally waits to shake-off inside the car on a rainy night. He even unzipped my backpack and chewed up my hairbrush, ate my lunch, and chewed the knob off the radio in the car! Having conversations with other handlers about dog stools is a ‘normal’ conversation to me now. On the other hand, I wouldn’t want any other partner. He never complains, loves to go to work and would do anything he had to to protect me.”

Just as Matthew said, the dogs love to go to work. On their days off, they go home to the officers’ home and integrate with their families. These dogs are very versatile. Every dog on our department is gentle towards children. We wouldn’t have them unless they were. But when they go to work, they are all business.

Aaron Thompson and his partner “Hutch” have been together since 2005. Thompson says, “A zero-to-60 call in about 2 minutes is pretty typical for K9. One minute you and your partner are apprehending a parolee-at-large (PAL) suspect, and 30 minutes later we are at a recruitment poster photo shoot.”

Officer Dustin Smith joined the Sacramento Police Department 1995. He started working with his partner “Apollo” in 2004. He recalls a vehicle stop in the south area where a PAL fled from police. Several K9 teams responded to the area to conduct a search in a perimeter. During the course of the search, officers learned that the PAL was possibly hiding in a residence. All of the residents were removed from the house and officers gave an admonishment that they were sending the dog in. A male subject exited a bedroom and immediately surrendered to Officer Smith (smart man). This, however, was not the intended PAL. The detained male advised that there was no one else in the house. Several more admonishments were made about the presence of the dog. Apollo quickly discovered the intended PAL hiding underneath a bed in the living room. After he was taken into custody (not so smart man), the PAL told Officer Smith that he was surprised that the dog had found him. When Smith asked him why, the PAL told him that he had taken a shower to get his scent off him so that the dog wouldn’t find him. Little did the PAL know there is nothing a person can do to hide their scent from a dog. Smith said, “You can’t control your human scent. Humans have ‘skin rafts’ that shed off your body. Even jumping in a river won’t make a difference. The skin rafts ‘hover’ above your body, on top of the water. They will not float down the river.”

Most of the dogs are cross trained as well. In addition to working patrol, the Sacramento Police Department has dogs that are trained for detecting explosives and weapons, and others for finding narcotics.

Officer Frank Reyes, an 18-year veteran has a partner named “Gator.” Gator is trained to sniff out narcotics. He is an 8-year-old black Labrador Retriever who has worked with Reyes since 2001. He has located hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of narcotics during the course of his duties. He’s found narcotics in dryer vents, stereo speakers, under car seats, you name it. There is no place Gator can’t detect drugs. Even the mere residue will set him off. When he hits on an area, he begins scratching, wagging his tail, and “hollers” to alert Reyes to look further. Once he discovers the stash, his only reward is “the towel.” Reyes rolls up a hand towel and tapes it close. Playing tug-o-war and catch with Gator, coupled with multiple “good boy” and “atta boy” is the best prize Gator could ever ask for.

To see these wonderful K9 teams in action, please join the Sacramento Police Canine Association on October 24th and 25th for the end-of-year Police Canine Trial sanctioned by the Western States Police Canine Association. The competition is a two day event with a narcotics portion on Friday the 24th, and the Patrol portion on Saturday the 25th. The competition will be held at Dan McAuliffe Field located just south of Sacramento State University. Friday’s event will begin at 5:00 p.m. Saturday’s event will begin promptly at 8:00 a.m. and will conclude at approximately 4:00 p.m. with an awards banquet to follow at the Sacramento State Alumni Center.

Log on to the Sacramento Police Department K9 website by going to www.spdk9.org. There you can read each officer’s biography and see photos, great videos, about upcoming events, and even stories like the one where K9 Officer Smith delivered his own baby at the side of the freeway on the way to the hospital!

A Day in the Life of: A Graveyard Officer

2009-04-12T17:03:38Z