Documentation and K9 Policing

DOCUMENTATION AND K9 POLICING

Probably one of the most overlooked, yet most critical parts of handling a police work dog (PWD) is the importance of proper and complete documentation. This applies not only to actual uses or deployments, but also (and especially) to training.

As police officers, probably the last thing we, as a group wish for is more paperwork. However, accurately and honestly documenting the performance of a PWD is a vital responsibility that can mean the difference in a conviction or an acquittal, and sometimes the difference in keeping a K9 unit in service, or abolishing it due to a major settlement pay out in a civil suit.

In this article, the following presumptions will be made. First, most readers are K9 officers. Second, K9 officers are by and large officers with at least several years of street experience and have considerable experience in courtroom testimony and defense attorney’s tactics. Under these presumptions, we will move forward with the understanding that there is no limit in the level of absurdity that defense attorneys will go to in order to discredit an officer on the stand. More on that in a minute.

Starting with day one of basic, introductory K9 training. The new handler should document everything about his new partner. This should be done in the same way as one would keep a journal. By recording what the new PWD does from the first thing in the morning until the last thing at night, the handler, in essence is writing an “owner’s manual” on his new partner. It is one thing to document how the dog responds to a given training scenario and how the dog performed, but it is quite another to keep track of other things such as how much and how quickly the dog ate his food, how often the dog eliminated (as well as its consistency), how the dog acted around regular (i.e. “off duty”) household activities, how the dog interacted with members of his new family, etc. Although this may all sound excessive, consider the benefits this small amount of extra work will give when, six months down the road, the handler identifies a problem he remembers having during his basic training. By referring back to his “owner’s manual,” he can most likely find not only what may have caused this problem, but also how the trainer remedied the problem. Obviously, handlers who are assigned pre-trained dogs will have a slight disadvantage over those who are assigned “green” dogs, but much is to be gained by this relatively small amount of extra work.

Now, on to actual performance documentation. This is something that is extremely critical. Defense attorneys are hesitant to go after handlers on their dog’s abilities in trial. Why? Simple. When it comes to dog handling, we know more than they do and we can make them look like utter buffoons in front of the judge and the jury. There are very few schools that deal with discrediting K9 officers on the stand—the information needed is simply too vast. However, there are “people” (cretins) out there who are former handlers and trainers who prostitute themselves out to the highest bidder, in this case, the defense attorneys. Some of these experts come with very impressive resume’s and credentials. Some of these credentials are actually authentic. The main thing here is, these people know what can create problems for a PWD and will do all they can to get you to say or even marginally indicate that the dog may be even remotely unreliable. If the defense gets that in, they’ll get their reasonable doubt, no problem. For example, a defense attorney may try to convince the judge and/or jury that the PWD was not alerting to the odor of narcotics, but was instead alerting to some type of food source or animal odor. Hopefully, the handler has taken the time to proof the dog on these types of odors and more importantly, has taken the time to document this training. That way, when the defense attorney smugly asks the handler, “is there any way your dog was alerting on something besides narcotic odor, such as the scent of another animal or food?” The handler can confidently say “no.” And when the attorney asks how he knows that, the handler can then explain that his dog alerts to narcotic odor and only narcotic odor and that he knows this because he has trained around negative training aids such as food items, animal scent, sterile packaging materials, etc. and can prove it with documentation. This type of testimony is very compelling and the attorney will most assuredly back off, not wanting to joust with the handler any further. This same type of documentation holds true for tracking and documenting training tracks that have been run around every possible distraction one can imagine.

Community policing activity should also be strongly documented, with approximate numbers of citizen contacts logged after each outing. Consider this scenario. Your K9 is involved in a justified apprehension and the suspect is bitten. About a year later, you, the police department and everyone who has ever said “hello” to the K9 are sued for a ridiculous amount of money in a civil action—claiming the dog is vicious. In one of your meetings with the suspect’s attorney, you bring out your documentation. It shows that in the "x" number of community policing outings you have had with your K9, he has had contact with 2000-some citizens. He has also been involved in 50 or so arrests in the past year and has been involved in directly locating or apprehending a dozen or suspects. It’s pretty compelling when the city’s attorney can ask the suspect’s attorney, why, out of all those people the dog had contact with (both positively AND negatively), was it the SUSPECT who was the only person who was bitten in the past given period of time? It’s a question that pretty much answers itself. Along with this is the satisfaction the administration will gain seeing the K9 Unit put to work in a positive, “public friendly” fashion. Public support is like obedience, you can never have too much of it.

I would like to relate a quick story about how thorough documentation helped win a case without ever going to trial. Each year, I place all my records in a 3-inch, D-ring, white notebook binder. I utilize the type that has clear coverings on the front and edge, so that I can slide labels behind them. My notebooks have a large, color photo of my dog on the front, with the words, “K9 THUNDER-2003 (or whatever appropriate year)” in 2-inch lettering. Along the edge, I have something similar. Point being, when someone sees the notebook, there is no question as to what the material therein pertains to. On the occasion at hand, we were in the courtroom between arraignments and the judge, the prosecutor, the defense attorney and the defendant were having an informal discussion on whether or not the preliminary hearing (suppression) was going to go forward. While this was going on, I was sitting in the jury box and I had all my notebooks for my dog sitting on the banister in front of me (I had 3 notebooks at the time, being I’d had my dog for 3 years). During their discussions, the judge was telling the attorney that his client needed to decide if he was going to go forward or not and verbally noted to the defense that the officer (me) appeared to be ready to go forward (this was a drug case and the defense was considering going after my dog’s credibility). At that time, the defense attorney looked over in my direction, saw the notebooks, and the double take I witnessed can only be described as classic. He immediately asked for a moment to “confer” with his client and minutes later I was dismissed after being told that there had been a change of plea. It was clear to me that the defense attorney had no desire to go one on one with a handler who appeared to really have all his ducks in a row.

Compare this to the handler I recently spoke with at a training session. Some of us were discussing the importance of documenting training records. At that time, this handler informed us that he doesn’t keep training records. When asked how can he show credibility on the part of his dog, he answered that if he says it happened, then it’s good enough. One can only imagine the problems this handler will experience in the event of an unwanted bite, imagine the payout his agency will be making if his dog ever nips a child and there are no records to show how often this dog has been worked in aggression control, or to show that the dog is anything other than vicious. We all know that even an unwanted bite can sometimes be justified based upon the actions (intentional or otherwise) of the person who was bitten. However, by not “bothering” to document anything done during training, this handler is creating a truly scary, and potentially financially devastating situation for himself, not to mention his unit.

Documentation is tedious, boring, time-consuming and probably one of the least popular things a K9 handler must do. However, it is one of the things that each of us must do. There are court decisions that deal with proper documentation of policy, procedure and training issues within a K9 Unit (i.e. Kerr v. West Palm Beach--11th Cir., 1989), and it is incumbent upon every officer who works a dog to be familiar with these decisions in order to keep a high level of professionalism in our area of specialization. The bottom line is this, if it’s not documented, it never happened. It’s up to all of us to continue the move away from the way K9’s were utilized in the “bite fests” of the 1960’s and to do all we can to maintain the high levels of professionalism that the modern day K9 Units have achieved. Proper documentation is definitely a prime example of the “ounce of prevention” being worth the “pound of cure,” or to put it more simply, "CYA".

This information may be reproduced with permission of the author.

Officer Ron Gunton NAPWDA Trainer—Utility/Narcotics Senior K9 Handler Mentor Police K9 Unit 8500 Civic Center Boulevard Mentor, Ohio 44060 440 974-5760

NOTE:
Training tips appearing in this portion of the web site are just that, "Training Tips". Do not take these as meaning that they are the only way to train K9 teams. There are probably as many training techniques, theories, beliefs and practices used by people as there are dogs. The only thing that is common among them all is the specific goal intended for that particular training session or tip. When problem solving tips appear, they to are just one of many. You must remember that no two dogs are the same and one method of doing something does not work on every single dog. Training techniques must be flexible from dog to dog. Please keep an open mind when reading these tips. Use what you can, modify what you want and discard what you wish. Please feel free to contact NAPWDA with your questions or comments. Take Care, Train Hard and STAY SAFE!