Hitting the paws button

Man’s best friend is now lending a paw to help the Turkey Creek Police Department combat its war on drugs. This new K-9 unit being used is a Belgian Malinois named Ice.
“It’s absolutely amazing,” said Chief of Police Shawn Eckhart. “Basically with the war on drugs right now, a department should equip itself with all the tools to properly handle all the situations it may be faced with.”
“When we had the opportunity for Officer (Chris) Lemaire to attend the academy and also obtain a dog,” he contineud, “we decided to look into that adventure.”
Officer Lemaire is the dog’s handler and put up his own time and money to go through the training program. “He is assisting with narcotics left and right,” the officer said.
He continued, “I have people who tell me they don’t have anything in the vehicle and I can’t search the vehicle. With the law, a K-9 sniff is probable cause if he alerts on the vehicle. The minute I start telling people I’ve got a K-9 and I’m going to run it around the vehicle, they will tell me where the narcotics are because they don’t want that dog finding the narcotics.”
The K-9 unit also comes into play when residences are being searched. Officer Lemaire described a recent incident where this came into play where the people living in the residence “peeled back the plastic of the tub, hid some narcotic paraphernalia in there, and put the tub back.”
He went on to say, “He (the dog) actually alerted and hit on it immediately. He knew it was there. Whenever we pulled the plastic back, we actually found a foot-and-a-half glass bong with narcotic residue.”
There is another side to working with the dog. “Whenever we are a little slow over here,” Officer Lemaire said, “I do have to take him for walks and everything else. It actually makes my time pass.”
It also becomes a companion and a partner on the road. Chief Eckhart, who has previous experience working with a K-9 unit here in Evangeline Parish, described this relationship as being one of his favorite experiences.
“It’s usually a single officer on the road out there doing his job,” the chief stated. “It gets lonely and things like that. There is a lot of fun that comes out of working with a K-9 unit because of the boring nights. There is always something to spice it up. The companionship, too, is there for an officer. That takes out a lot of stress.”
To that point, Officer Lemaire expressed, “The way a K-9 is attached to his handler is remarkable. That’s not just a dog. He’s a partner and a brother. I look at him as a son.”
He continued, “Just the other night, we ran to the Y (in Barber Spur) to get something to eat. I have a sliding door in my unit where (the dog) can actually come meet me. I was passing another vehicle and had a corndog in my hand. I was looking at the vehicle and didn’t realize he was there next to me. The minute I turned my head, that corndog was gone. He was licking his lips.”
All-in-all, Chief Eckhart expressed having the K-9 unit is huge for the village. As he said, “There are a lot of times we’ll go out and there will be things we cannot see, hear, or smell. But, the K-9 will detect those things almost immediately. It brings you to a different level of law enforcement. The effectiveness of the K-9 unit here in Turkey Creek is that we are taking drugs off the streets.”
The K-9 unit is also effective because it allows for illegal weapons to also be taken off the village’s streets. Chief Eckhart said, “If we cannot detect drugs when there is a firearm in the vehicle, then there is nothing illegal about having a firearm in the vehicle. It becomes illegal whenever you have the two together.”
He concluded, “It’s making the community safer.”