The Connecticut State Police Unit this Friday will graduate a new set of computer K9 teams trained in electronic storage detection. The state police were the first in the world to train dogs for this purpose.
According to the state police, computer K9 teams are specially trained to locate items associated with computers and cell phones. The Connecticut State Police K9 Unit successfully trained and deployed the first Computer K9 teams into the field in 2012 when the Electronic Storage Detection (ESD) dog program was started.
The state police K9 Unit and the state forensic lab were asked to determine if a dog was capable of searching for and finding electronic storage devices. Dr. Jack Hubbal, a forensic lab chemist, was able to isolate a chemical compound, which surrounds the memory board in all phones and computers. Another compound was discovered on DVD’s, CD’s and floppy disks.
The K9 trainers were able to use the compounds, and initially trained two computer K9 teams. The first two computer K9 teams, Connecticut State Police Detective George Jupin and K9 “Selma” and Rhode Island State Police Detective Adam Houston and K9 “Thoreau,” were graduated in 2012 and are currently assigned to the Computer Crimes Unit in their respective agencies.
The latest class of computer K9 teams started their training in February at the Connecticut State Police K9 Unit. The computer dogs spent 5 weeks at the K9 Unit for the imprintation stage of training.
The computer dogs are capable of alerting to, and finding, any kind of electronic storage device including, but not limited to DVD’s, USB drives, hard drives, SD cards, and micro SD cards.
All Connecticut State Police computer dogs are Labradors come from Guiding Eyes for the Blind in New York.
