Now with a full complement of officers and new equipment, the Los Alamitos Police Department will soon have its own canine unit, Police Chief Michael Claborn announced at this week’s city council meeting.
“The first step is getting the program into full effect,” Claborn told the Council, “next will be our procedures and then we’ll get the equipment and then we’ll be able to do and select the canine itself.”
“As far as the canine program, I want to mention some of the benefits that this would bring to our city,” the police chief said.
“The obvious or the operational benefits that this would have. And the most obvious being the apprehension of suspects.”
“So the ability to send a canine into a situation that would be dangerous for an officer themselves to go into. And this is done to save lives,” said Claborn.
“Officers should not put themselves in those situation. That we could use canine for. Another would be the ability of a canine to search large areas in a fraction of the time that it would take an officer to do so,” said Claborn.
“If you could try to imagine a large warehouse in a city that had an alarm pole. We would need several officers from multiple agencies to be able to come in and search that area when a dog would be able to do it by itself and a fraction of the time,” he added.
“And the most obvious benefit being the apprehension of a suspect, missing persons, narcotics detection, or even particle searches. Dogs nowadays can find not only handguns, but there are even canines that have been trained to be able to find pieces of electronics of thumb drives,” the police chief said.
For search warrants for kids, and things of that nature that suspects will hide, canines have been trained to be able to locate those as well,” he said.
“And we’re not proposing this, but some districts have utilized canines for a locker search at schools because there’s no expectation of privacy there to have a dog walk up and down the hallways.,” the chief said.
“The one obvious benefit would be the community engagement aspect. Just think of any possible community event that you could have. And the dog immediately becomes a star of the show. At any and every event,” smiled Claborn.
He said having a canine unit could also save the city from workers’ compensation issues, having dogs search spaces and areas that could put an officer in a situation where they could be injured, probably in the ceiling. spaces inside of under a house or areas that could pose a threat.
“These are a hidden benefit and one that helps with issues every agency is struggling with these days, recruitment and retention,” said Claborn, “and being able to advertise that we actually have a canine officer here in the city of Los Alamitos would be a huge benefit to them.”
Council members were supportive of the idea.
“I think it’d be a great program for all the reasons that you shared,” said Hibard.
“I think this is an incredible program,” said Murphy, and “I’m so glad you pursued it so I’m all for it.
