Police K-9: How I learned to trust the Dog Pt. 1
TL/DR: Never doubt man’s best friend
It was dark, wet, and the rain was cold. Living in Florida has its advantages, like seventy degree winters. So while the air was pleasant, the rain was frigid. I had the uncomfortable sensation of feeling every drop, as I hadn’t quite gotten soaked through yet. I trudged down the railway tracks, rolling my boots on the wooden planks and uneven gravel. To either side were steep hills, densely forested. Ahead of me was a handler, and the excited pant of a K-9, Titan.
Titan was a fierce specimen, nearly dropped from K-9 training for his stubbornness and strong will. It was a hallmark of his breed, the Belgian Malinois, and as much as that spirit had made him challenging to train, it was the same attribute that was furiously driving him down the rail way tracks in a wide S-pattern.
“You sure he knows where he’s going?” I complained mildly.
I couldn’t believe that Titan could track anything under the circumstances. We had been called to domestic battery that had occurred forty five minutes previous.
Our victims were the girlfriend of a meth addict, and her brother. The suspected junkie had put a hell of a beating on the girlfriend, seriously bruising an eye, and raising multiple quarter-sized welts on her cheeks and forehead. The girlfriend had escaped from her single-story apartment, down the road to her brother’s house. The junkie had followed, and when confronted by the brother, gave him a beating as well. The brother had called us, unwilling to tolerate the abuse to himself and his sister. They both swore that the suspect had left the residence towards the train tracks, twenty minutes prior to our dispatch and arrival.
“Don’t doubt the dog,” the handler assured me, and we continued our trudge.
The train tracks ran parallel to the roadway our female victim had fled down, and continued past her apartment. We could see the lights and edges of her apartment block, up a forested hill, and through a chain link fence. Titan proceeded past the apartment, and made his way to a bridge crossing the highway.
The rush of cars and lights whizzed by, and the bridge wasn’t safe to cross as a pedestrian. We cut the track there. The handler believed that the suspect had likely escaped into the forest across the bridge, known for its homeless encampments. I wondered if we had been truly tracking the suspect at all, or if instead we were just chasing the scent of a booze-sweating vagrant making his nightly trek.
We returned to our cars, took the statements, took photographs, and began writing up the warrant when we got another call.
“He’s back at the victim’s apartment,” The dispatcher informed us. “Neighbor just called in saying he came from the direction of the train tracks.”
“En route,” called the handler and turned to me, “You take the railroad tracks in case he flees that way.”
I nodded and rushed back down the tracks. Maybe we could catch the knucklehead, here and now. The rain slackened, and I found a shadow off the track to hide in. I turned my radio volume to it’s lowest setting, and listened. A few years of Marine Corps training and country living had taught me the value of sound, and I made sure I was as much a part of the rustling forest as any tree standing sentinel.
The other units took their perimeter positions before a pair of Officers and the handler flanked the apartment doorway.
“Going in,” Came the call, and I cradled my Glock in excitement.
Crash! I could hear from the train tracks,
“Police!” came the bellow, “Come out and show us your hands!”
More crashing and screams followed, mixed with Titan’s excited barks.
“Come out or we will release the dog!” The handler bellowed.
“NO! NO! I’M COMING OUT” the suspect exclaimed.
I heard several more bellows and crashes, followed by a laughably calm radio call,
“One in custody,”
We got him.
The handler walked me through the play-by-play. The suspect had escaped to the homeless camps in order to wait out the police. When we left the scene, he returned to the apartment, looking to make peace with his girlfriend and avoid the ensuing criminal charges. He had climbed up the hillside in a small, hard-to-see path, and crawled through a hole in the chain link fence.
When the Officers had first burst through the door, the junkie had been sitting on the bed, looking at his cell phone. He sprung up, and threw a dresser to the floor, trying to delay the Officers in pursuit. He fled into the bathroom at which point the Officers held their position, unsure if he had retreated to grab a weapon. One of the crashes had been the suspect smashing out the bathroom window, attempting to climb out and escape. That was when the handler had warned him he was going to release the dog, resulting in the man’s surrender. The suspect’s lacerated hands were enough cuts for one day, he didn’t feel like finding out what a Malinois could do to a human leg.
“Don’t doubt the dog!” The handler mocked,
“Yeah, Yeah…” I conceded.
