K 9

The New York Police Department has deployed the first K-9 units devoted exclusively to the subway, the city's top transit officer said Monday. "We have four out there now, with another three to follow by mid-December," said James P. Hall, chief of the NYPD's Transit Bureau. "They won't work anywhere else but the subway." The last K-9 unit dedicated solely to mass transit was disbanded in the 1980s, but Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly revived the idea in January.

A Ventura County sheriff's K-9 unit dog, responsible for sniffing out dozens of pounds of illegal drugs, has returned home after undergoing a life-saving emergency operation. The 5-year-old German shepherd, who is partnered with Senior Deputy Anthony Aguirre, had surgery Sept. 26 for a knotted colon, often a fatal condition in dogs. He was released Monday from Anacapa Animal Hospital in Ventura. "It's a miracle that Edi is with us today -- I'm still amazed," said Dr.

The Inglewood Police Assn. and 10 of its officers sued the city Tuesday, claiming that officers in the K-9 unit are owed overtime for taking care of police dogs at home. The officers claim that the city of Inglewood owes each of them about 20 hours, 30 minutes of overtime per month for three years, plus interest, for "the feeding, exercising, grooming, training, caring [and] transportation" of the animals. Inglewood Deputy City Atty.

Police officers aren't generally known for their whining, but then again Gunther isn't your average cop. Standing just over 2 feet tall and weighing almost 70 pounds, the dark-haired German shepherd K9 officer from the Santa Barbara Sheriff's Department whimpered Thursday as he watched a group of other dogs scale a 6-foot wall at Point Mugu naval base's canine obstacle course to retrieve a tennis ball.

After a four-hour search by the sheriff's K-9 unit, a Pasadena murder suspect was found hiding in a dumpster four blocks from the courthouse where he had escaped Tuesday morning. Steven Brusiter, 20, broke away from 17 other inmates who were being escorted by two deputies from the basement lockup of the Pasadena Superior Court to a courtroom upstairs, said Deputy Rich Erickson. Authorities are not sure if Brusiter broke out of his handcuffs or if they were not put on properly, Erickson said.

Ventura County Sheriff John V. Gillespie has ordered deputies to remove the word Dago , the name of a department police dog, from a K-9 patrol car because of protests from Italian-Americans. Gillespie said Wednesday that the dog's name, which is pronounced "dahgo," was given to it by a kennel in Germany and that the name was put on the car with no harm intended.

For the second time in a year, two civil rights groups on Tuesday asked the Police Commission to suspend operation of the Los Angeles Police Department's controversial K9 unit, citing the commission's own finding that dog handlers do not routinely issue warnings. The activists also criticized a commission report for avoiding the issue of when the animals are allowed to attack, and for failing to instruct the department to switch from a "find-and-bite" to a "find-and-bark" policy.

Tucked away in a quiet, immaculately landscaped corner behind the Long Beach Police Academy, guarded by the sprawling branches of an old and gnarled tree, the final resting place of some of the department's most beloved heroes can be found. It is here that black headstones, polished to gleam like a rookie's shoes on his first day at the job, pay tribute to a small legion of officers that expected no more than a pat on the head for saving their partners' lives.

If you ask Patricia Burda, no cop should walk the street without a bulletproof vest. Not even the four-legged kind. Burda, president of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in Merced, is trying to revolutionize K-9 units across the country by outfitting crime-fighting pooches with body armor.

The Police Department's newest canine cop, a 3-year-old German shepherd named Sagus, has trained for months to sniff out drugs and track down fugitives. But put a slice of vanilla cake in front of him, and he's driven purely by instinct. At a swearing-in ceremony Monday, Sagus licked a cake prepared in his honor before receiving his badge signaling official membership on the Ventura police force.