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K9 AcquistionMasterpiece on the Mississippi TO: The Honorable Mayor and City Council Members FROM: Michael C. Van Milligen, City Manager SUBJECT: K9 Acquisition DATE: February 1, 2011 Dubuque bitil All-America City 1 2007 The City of Dubuque has received information from former Dubuque Police Department K9 handler Randy Roy, who now works with U.S. Army K9 units, that the City can obtain a K9 trained by the U.S. Army on explosive detection at no cost. The dog is an approximate one year old female Belgian Malinois named "Four ". The K9 is already "imprinted" on a variety of explosives and it is planned to expand the training to include additional explosive and flammable substances and potentially for human scent detection for tracking purposes. This K9 would serve several duties. It could be used in building sweeps (schools, dignitary visits), fire scene investigations for the detection of accelerants, for bomb detection and for open -air tracking, such as for missing or lost people or suspect tracking. Besides the detection capabilities that would be available to local law and fire officials, a nice component of this type of K9 unit is the comparative cost. Since the K9 would only be used on an "as needed" basis, the City would not need to equip a specialized squad car or have some of the other costs associated with K9 units. The dog would remain at the handler's residence until it is needed. This limited use of the K9 will also extend the working life of the K9. Additional costs that would be incurred would be for training and housing. Currently the K9 unit is fed and has its health concerns covered by donating partners. These community partners, Theisen's, PetMed and Dr. John Haupert, have agreed to the same arrangements with a new K9. Basic housing and work equipment including a kennel, leashes, harnesses, bowls, officer uniform, etc. have been priced and will cost approximately $1,000. The upfront costs of between $4,200 and $5,700 would be covered by $5,000 in drug forfeiture funds. Chief of Police Mark Dalsing recommends City Council approval to proceed with the adoption of the K9, purchase of equipment and training of a new handler. I concur with the recommendation and respectfully request Mayor and City Council approval. MCVM:jh Attachment cc: Barry Lindahl, City Attorney Cindy Steinhauser, Assistant City Manager Mark M. Dalsing, Chief of Police 72—. , Miciael C. Van Milligen THE CITY OF DUB E MEMORANDUM Masterpiece on the Mississippi TO: Michael C. Van Milligen City Manager FR: Mark M. Dalsing Chief of Police RE: K9 Acquisition INTRODUCTION This memorandum will outline the Dubuque Police Department acquiring an explosive detecting K9. BACKGROUND February 3, 2011 The Dubuque Police Department and the Dubuque Fire Department had been having informal conversations about policy and procedure in response to joint scenes, including those involving explosives. The conversations have also included revisiting the need for a bomb squad. The November 2010 bomb threat incident at City Hall resulted in formal conversation. In late November 2010, representatives of the Dubuque Police Department and the Dubuque Fire Department formally met to discuss the above topics. A formal bomb squad was discussed and it was decided that this should be researched further. During this topic, Capt. Jim Lembke brought forward a suggestion that we determined was a very viable option. Lembke suggested that we consider obtaining a K9 trained in the detection of explosives & flammables. Lembke supervises the department's K9 operations and remains in contact with former Dubuque Police Department K9 handler Randy Roy who now works with U.S. Army K9 units. Through discussions, Lembke learned that the Army "retires" their K9's into civilian law enforcement use at no cost to the agencies and that the K9's still have several years of working life available. Under such a plan, the department would obtain a K9 at little to no cost as compared to other K9's, for use as an explosives detection K9. This K9 could serve several duties. It could be used in building sweeps (schools, dignitary visits), fire scene investigations for the detection of accelerants, and for bomb detection. Keeping in mind the recent incident at City Hall, under a similar situation we would respond the K9, have it "search" the bag and then respond accordingly. In the City Hall case, the K9 would not have indicated on the bag and we would have downgraded our response and removed the bag for examination and ended the situation. If a K9 were to ever indicate on a parcel we would know explosives were detected and would need to escalate the response and have a bomb squad respond. Additionally these dogs can be cross trained into multiple fields. The initial scenario discussed was obtaining a cross trained K9 capable of explosives detection as well as open -air tracking such as for missing or lost people or suspect tracking. Besides the detection capabilities that would be available to local law and fire officials, a nice component of this type of unit is the comparative cost. Since the unit would only be used on an "as needed" basis, we would not need to equip a specialized squad car or have some of the other costs associated with K9 units. The dog would remain at the handler's residence until it is needed. This limited use of the K9 will also extend the working life of the K9. Traditionally daily -use K9's have a working life of approximately 5 -7 years. Because of the limited use of an explosives detecting K9, we would potentially be able to add several years of working life to this K9. The group decided that we would continue to explore bomb response options with the K9 being the priority topic to review with a formal bomb squad remaining as a secondary review topic. Recently Capt. Lembke received a call from Randy Roy indicating that he has a K9 that would be a good candidate for civilian law enforcement work. The K9 is trained on explosive detection but is not adapting to cross training for apprehension (bite) duty. Because the Army wants the dual training, they do not wish to keep this K9. The K9 is an approximate one year old, female Belgian Malinois named "Four ". The Army would allow us to "adopt" the dog from them at no cost. This K9 is already "imprinted" on a variety of explosives and it is planned to expand the training to include additional explosives and flammable substances and potentially for human scent detection for tracking purposes. Additional costs that we would incur would be for training and housing. Currently our K9 unit is fed and has its health concerns covered by donating partners. These community partners, Theisen's, PetMed and Dr. John Haupert, have agreed to the same arrangements with a new K9. Basic housing and work equipment including a kennel, leashes, harnesses, bowls, officer uniform, etc. have been priced and will cost approximately $1000. The most expensive items would be the training for the handler and the training equipment for the K9. A training kit containing samples for ongoing detection training ranges in price from $1500 to $3000. The training for the handler would take place in Indianapolis, IN. It is a two week training session where we would need to cover the officer travel, meals and hotel expenses. The training and certification at this point is free. A preliminary estimate of travel and housing would be $1900 for one officer and $2700 for two. We are pricing this for two officers as we are considering sending our current K9 unit at the same time for additional training. The next training block is in late February 2011. On February 3, 2011 the Control Board for the Dubuque Drug Task Force (DDTF) held a scheduled meeting. At this meeting I requested funding from drug forfeiture funds to offset the potential expenses. The Control Board unanimously approved funding up to $5,000 to cover equipment and training expenses. Any additional expenses beyond this $5,000 would be covered by current department funds. An additional K9 could have some future budget impact. Currently we are able to fund our existing K9 operations out of budgeted Patrol funds. It is expected that we will continue to do so with a second K9 but we might consider a separate line in the budget solely for K9 operations. It would take some discussion as to whether this would be entirely police budget funded or if it would be a joint police -fire project. The Dubuque Police Department is continuing to research a formal bomb squad and available options and possible expenses. The acquisition of a K9 would be viewed as a component and would not end this research. CONCLUSION & RECOMMENDATION The addition of a K9 for explosive detection has been deemed as the most feasible option for our immediate needs when a bomb squad's start up costs, recurring expenses and training requirements are taken into consideration. The opportunity to obtain a young, already trained K9 will fill an immediate void in the department as well as save the department $5,000 to $10,000 in the purchase of a new K9. The use of drug forfeiture funds will allow the department to fund this new project with little to no immediate budget impact. ACTION REQUESTED Review of this memorandum and City Council approval to proceed with the adoption of the K9, purchase of equipment, and training of a new handler. cc: Dan Brown