Florida school police officers are turning to a new way of detecting guns in schools, but it doesn’t beep.
It barks.
Boca Raton Community High School raised about $7,000 in donations to get a new gun-sniffing K-9 for the school district, said Susie King, an assistant principal at the school. It had to retire its old gun dogs about five years ago, and the program was put on hold.
The new dog will join the School District of Palm Beach County’s team currently made up of Tango and Jake, two drug-sniffing dogs, and Kash, a bloodhound who is trained to search for missing people.
But in Alachua County, school officials haven’t considered getting a gun-detecting K-9.
Alachua County School District Public Information Officer Jackie Johnson said the school district does not have these kinds of dogs, and as far as she knows, the board has never even discussed the topic.
The sheriff’s office doesn’t have gun-sniffing K-9s either, but it does have dogs that search for articles such as weapons, clothing and narcotics. But this means the dogs don’t search for gun odors. They only search for human scents on those articles.
King said Palm Beach County School District’s 14-month-old Maggie, a Danish shepherd, is being trained by the U.S. K-9 Academy and Police Dog Training Center in Hialeah, Florida.
King said Maggie found her first gun on her sixth day of training. Maggie and her human companion will teach students conflict-resolution skills in classrooms in addition to searching campuses for guns. King said she started a K-9 club at the school to raise additional funds to purchase another dog.
Miami-Dade County and Pinellas County school districts added gun-detecting dogs in 2014, said Peter Nunez, training director at the U.S. K-9 Academy.
When Pinellas County School District Officer David Harrison drives to a school, students see the white paint on his car that reads:
“Firearms Detection K-9 ‘Roo’ On Board. Making our schools safer, one sniff at a time.”
Harrison said his gun-sniffing K-9, a 2-year-old yellow Labrador retriever, makes students think twice before bringing guns onto campus.
Firearm-detecting dogs are more of a deterrent than anything else because students know if they bring them on campus, Roo’s wet, black nose will sniff them out, Harrison said.
But the dogs don’t just deter students from bringing guns to schools. Some students mistake Roo for a drug dog. When Harrison and Roo arrive, the flushing of toilets can be heard throughout the school.
Both Palm Beach and Pinellas County school districts chose to get these dogs to keep schools safe. The dogs can smell the odors of the gun that officers can’t see.
“Guns are becoming more prevalent in society, and our school system mirrors society,” Harrison said.
The dogs and their officers go through a training period when the dogs detect gun odors through scent association, and if they smell those odors, they sit and wait for instructions from the officer. Harrison said when Roo finds a gun, she sits and wags her blonde tail vigorously.
Nunez has trained police dogs for 32 years. He said it costs anywhere between $6,900 and $7,500 to get the dog and train it with its human companion.
Nunez said in a Miami-Dade County school, a student told his friend he brought a gun on campus. His friend told an administrator, the police brought gun-detecting dogs on campus and the dogs found the gun.
“We have no idea how many lives we saved because of that dog,” Nunez said.
He said he was surprised that some school districts don’t have these dogs. With the prevalence of gun violence in the U.S., the K-9s can help keep the guns out of schools.
“Twenty years ago we would think this was a luxury, but today it’s a necessity,” he said.
Although gun dogs have been effective, in 2013 a K-9 accidentally shot a gun in Massachusetts when he pawed it in the snow. No one was injured, but the dog was startled. Officers said this was a freak accident, though, and thought the gun may have been defective.
[A version of this story ran on page 3 on 2/20/2015]
Officer David Harrison, of Pinellas County, poses for a picture with Roo the K9 dog.
