1
 Memorials
to Fallen K-9s
2003 page 23
The
F.A.S.T. Co. donates sets of cards to all partners
I
need your help to inform me of
such
losses.
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Dept.
addresses available for those who want to send condolences to officers.
See below
In
Loving Memory
of
K-9
SULTAN
March
7, 2003
Partner:
Officer Jimmy Fogata
Santa
Paula Police Dept.
214
South 10th St.
Santa
Paula, CA 93060
805.525.4474
called 8/13 requesting photo..left message
call again 8/27/03 after 8 pm est.
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The
Santa Paula Police Departments forth K-9 handler was Senior Officer
James
A. Fogata. This K-9 was purchased through community donations and a
fund
raiser by the BLIT Organization (Better Living In Time). After the
community
heard the department did not have the funds to purchase a replacement
K-9,
BLIT organized a fundraiser to purchase a K-9. Senior Officer
Fogata
and his K-9 Sultan, began K-9 training in July of 1996 with Dave and
Debbie
Inglis (Dave is at this time, a Lieutenant with the Ventura Police
Department
and former Ventura Police K-9 handler). Sultan, a German Shepherd was
from
Germany. Sultan was initially trained as a patrol K-9 with duties
identical
to former K-9’s. Sultan has the distinction of being the departments
first
cross trained K-9. Sultan was crossed trained as a drug detection dog,
capable of identifying several kinds of controlled substances and
marijuana.
During the course of his duties, Sultan was utilized on a possible drug
smuggler who landed at the Santa Paula Airport and detained by SPPD
Officers,
DEA, INS and IRS. Sultan’s ability to indicate on drugs led to the
probable
cause to search the twin engine Cessna and its contents of 282 kilos of
cocaine. The subsequent arrest and prosecution of the smuggler led to
the
asset seizure of his plane, and expensive home in Montecito,
California.
The subsequent sale of his property caused almost $90,000 to be awarded
to the Santa Paula Police Department by the federal government,
strictly
for use in drug interdiction. This money was later used by the
department
to purchase the 6th and 7th police K-9’s. Senior Officer Fogata
and
Sultan worked together for a little over 6 years and Sultan began to
suffer
from lower back problems and was retired from service in July of 2002.
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K9
Sultan: SPPD canine dies after long and distinguished career By
Peggy Kelly - Santa Paula Times
A
highly respected member of the Santa Paula Police Department passed
away
Friday, and partner Sr. Officer Jimmy Fogata and friends of K-9 Sultan
reflected on his unique personality and devotion to duty. Sultan had
“been
in declining health from long-term stress injuries he suffered during
his
long and distinguished career,” said SPPD Comdr.. Mark Trimble. “Sultan
was considered a very fine police dog and they were outstanding
ambassadors
to the community.” “Sultan was a fine dog, a good friend and
probably
the best partner I ever had,” said Fogata. Sultan joined the SPPD in
June
1996 and was retired Aug. 1, 2002. His back injury had worsened
until
he became crippled in his final days and the decision reached to put
him
down.
On
Friday, SPPD officers who wanted to say good-bye visited Sultan; others
from the Ventura County K9 Training Group were present at the vets when
Sultan was put to sleep. Sultan rode in a police car to his final
destination,
proudly wearing his badge. K9s are “awesome, the best tools in
law
enforcement and Sunny Schmidt and BLIT did a lot of fundraising to buy
him for the community.” Sultan became an “instant celebrity” in
1997
when he was part of the major drug bust at the Santa Paula Airport,
where
federal agents forced a cocaine smuggler running out of fuel to
land.
Sultan was oversized for a K9, about 95 pounds. “I would carry him
around
on my shoulders, we flew in helicopters together, swam together,” the
latter
not a favorite of the dog, during the average of 40 hours of monthly K9
training, said Fogata. “The funniest thing about Sultan was that
he really liked women and kids; you could put him in the middle of
preschoolers
and he’d roll on his back and want his belly scratched. Sultan had a
real
unique personality. He really liked people except the bad guys.”
And people loved Sultan: they would call out his name during parades
and
stage birthday parties for him at Las Piedras Park where his treat
would
be a Big Mac. Sultan also had dual personalities, a “beast”
inside
the patrol car and a “gentle giant” once outside. His gentle
giant
side led to shaking hands with all the kids, playing dead when Fogata
would
point his finger and say “Bang!” and hanging out at Cruise Nites.
Sultan didn’t accept retirement easily: “I’d hear him whining behind
the
front door when I left for work; the dogs are so driven to work it was
a hard thing to deal with.” But then the lazy days of retirement
kicked in and Sultan could often be found “laying by the pool and
getting
spoiled; that was his whole thing, that and being able to sleep in the
house at night.” The inner-puppy in Sultan surfaced when Evan
became
Fogata’s K9 partner. Initially, “He ignored Evan, considered him a
rookie,”
not worthy of respect. Sultan’s buddy was the family’s dog Murphy, who
he palled around with and enjoyed vacationing with the humans.
“Jimmy
and Sultan both displayed to our citizens the best the SPPD has to
offer
in many ways,” noted Cmdr. Trimble. “It was an honor serving with
Sultan and he was family,” said Fogata. “He’s being cremated and will
be
back with me. . .”
notified
by Jim Cortina, CPWDA Dir.
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In
Loving Memory
of
K-9
TAKA
July
xx, 2003
Partner:
Deputy Mark Self
Cleveland
County Sheriff's Department
Law
Enforcement Center - Ken Smith K9 Unit
100
Justice Place
Shelby,
NC
Telephone:(704)
484-4888
left
message....call Thus. am... 8/14 callagain after 7 pm 8/27/03
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CLEVELAND
COUNTY SHERIFF DEPT. Deputy: K-9 officers 'wear a badge' just
like
us
Megan
Diskin - Star Staff Writer
Anyone
who has seen the movie "Turner & Hooch" to its bittersweet ending
understands
that the bond between a police officer and his pooch runs deep. In
fact,
the movie illustrates that the loss can be as devastating for the
officer
as if he'd lost a comrade who walks on two feet instead of four.
Two weeks ago, that's exactly what happened to the Cleveland County
Sheriff's
Office K-9 Unit. They lost one of their own. He went by the
name Taka, walked on all fours and remained steadfast and brave in the
line of duty. Deputy Mark Self had Taka, an officer in the K-9 unit, at
his side for about 5 years. And Self, like the other sheriff's
deputies,
thought of Taka as another deputy sheriff. That is why the deputies in
the K-9 unit wanted this article dedicated to Taka's memory. "They wear
a badge just like us," said Deputy Mike Lawrence, with the Narcotics
Division.
Also a member of the K-9 unit, Lawrence is paired with Max. "He puts
himself
between you and the bad guy and is not afraid of anything," he said.
But
a donation from Bob and Annette Fain of Century Care in Shelby has
somewhat
eased Self's pain as well as the other deputies' sense of loss at the
passing
of their four-legged friend and partner. The Fains donated the $2,500
needed
to purchase a new dog from Budapest, Hungary, to be trained for the K-9
program. His name is Capone. But he will not be paired with Self
because he's a rookie deputy and needs to have a rookie handler -
Deputy
Chris Cook. Self has been partnered with another veteran K-9, Atos.
Cook
said that matching the right dog with the right handler is key to
success
in the field.
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"If
you don't have obedience, you don't have anything," Lawrence agreed.
The
training program for the K-9s is a rigorous one that runs anywhere from
five weeks to three months, depending on the skill level of the dog. It
consists of running through an obstacle course twice daily, once at 6
a.m.
and a second time closer to midnight. The purpose of the training is
twofold,
Cook said. It braces the dog for the rigors of a deputy's day -
which
can span from early in the morning to late at night - and therefore
instills
endurance in the dog, Cook explained. But the training also
prepares
the dog for tracking down a suspect at night and teaches him
adaptability
to real-world obstacles. Orange cones are staggered in a row to mock a
chase for the "bad guy," and the obstacles are designed to look like
porches,
open windows, brick walls, high fences and the like, Cook said.
Lawrence
said a common misconception is that the dogs are trained to kill the
"bad
guy," but they are taught simply to disable a suspect until the handler
arrives to apprehend them. He added the caveat that, in a given
situation,
the dog bites when he needs to bite. "If your leg or head is sticking
out,
then look out because that's what's going to get bitten," Lawrence
said.
Another real-world scenario designed for the dogs prepares them to
locate
a "bad guy" in a hiding place. When the dog gets his man, he
"indicates"
and gets his handler's attention by scratching or barking, Lawrence
explained.
He also said the human sense of smell pales drastically when compared
to
the strength of a canine's snout. The O-factor, which relates to the
dog's
sense of smell, is at least a thousand times as strong in a dog as in a
human, Lawrence said. He said to imagine the O-factor as the size of a
pencil eraser for a human, while it is comparable to the size of a
human
thumb in a dog, Lawrence explained. Another analogy Cook used was that
of driving up to a fast-food restaurant to order a hamburger. The
person
barely smells the hamburger, but the dog also smells the bun, ketchup
and
the pickles. "That's one of the reasons why they're so invaluable to
us,"
he added. Lawrence said the key to training is for the K-9s to feel
like
they're playing rather than working. "If you let them play with a towel
that you've purposely placed narcotics into, they're going to learn
that
smell and never forget it," he said. Above all, Cook said, the most
important
thing is fostering a good relationship between the deputy and the K-9.
He added that the first few weeks is really a bonding period with the
dog,
when Capone can get used to his routine and get to know his family.
"It's
all about the bond," he said. The K-9 goes everywhere the deputy goes,
both to work and home. "He feels what I feel," Cook said. Cook
said
that Capone has made great progress in a short time and should be ready
to hit the ground running by the beginning of August. Deputy Ken
Smith is the K-9 Unit coordinator. The unit has five deputies and
canine
comrades in all:
Deputy
Mark Self and "Atos"
Deputy
John McIntyre and "Zeusa"
Deputy
Cliff Irvin and "Bo"
-
Deputy Mike Lawrence and "Max"
-
Deputy Chris Cook and "Capone"
notified
by Jim Cortina, CPWDA Dir.
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In
Loving Memory
of
K-9
ALEX
"ALIX OL
MILCS"
July 5,
2003
Partner:
Sgt.
Steve Hunt
Amory
Police Dept.
Chief
of Police Ronnie Bowen 109
South
Front St Amory, Mississippi 38821
(601)256-2676
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Alex
had passed on when I found him Saturday morning, July 5, 2003 in his
indoor
air conditioned kennel. He had been featured in an article of our local
paper, "The Amory Advertiser" on July 2, 2003, only three days prior
while
I was on vacation. We worked together from October 3, 1994 to July 5,
2003.
He was the best partner I'll ever have. Alex was Amory Police
Departments
first K9 and was purchased with majority of the funds raised by local
citizens,
civic clubs and the city. It has been a tremendous loss to my wife and
I. Alex was a dual purpose German shepherd, born in Czechoslovakia and
trained in Germany. I am so thankful that I spent a lot of time with
him.
My family dearly loved Alex. We visited the local schools, churches,
civic
groups, nursing homes, scouts and other organizations who
requested
demonstrations. Alex always performed with excellence and always made
me
very proud. I can recall him traveling with my wife and I to New
Orleans
where we attended a Street Survival Seminar. Alex would stay in the
Riverside
Hotel with us. We started to get on the elevator and everyone would
say,
we'll catch the next one, okay? His mannerism was very good in public,
never caused any problems or destroyed anything. He lived in our home
and
one day my wife said, "Where's Alex?" We saw Alex come out of my son's
room with ketchup on his nose and he returned to find his roast was
gone.
That was so funny to us, how Alex had sneaked in while we went out to
get
something else. That was when I first got him. He never chewed on
anything
or bothered anything else. My door panels and head liners in both
my units where we worked out, were never destroyed or damaged. I was
writing
a warning ticket one day and I saw a German Shepherd that looked like
mine
standing in front of our unit. I said to myself, that dog looks like
mine.
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I looked back and the door was opened. He had opened the door and got
out.
I quickly commanded him to get into the auto and he did. I quickly had
the handles removed because I knew he had discovered his own door
popper.
We caught a burglar inside a building one night. We apprehended him
after
we answered a silent alarm. I will never forget how silent he was as we
searched perimeter until we found suspect in the building. I had
another
incident where a man bailed out from a vehicle crossing traffic fleeing
into the woods. Alex located him under a brush top with brick and cover
all around. He sniffed out drugs on many occasions for me and other
officers.
I remember one night we got the first meth in this area that I had ever
seen that resulted in two arrests and handgun seized. I remember
several
times where I arrested wanted felons on the road that he would bark so
loud and never take his eyes off me as he looked on from the
unit.
I remember one time we were in the Kiwanis Club meeting for a program
and
they started to sing. Alex just howled out loud. Everybody just died
laughing
as I tried to quieted him, but they loved it. His loyalty to me will
never
be forgotten and I cherish his memories. He would give his life for me
and always watched me when I was out of the car. When we were off, he
would
walk by the car and try to push the handle up with his nose. He always
would sound off i you asked him, if he wanted to go to work. I thought
of the many good times as we had a memorial at my home on Saturday,
July
5 at 3 P.M. My pastors spoke at the memorial, the Chief of Police and
officers
that I worked with, made remarks and I spoke. I appreciate the many
phone
calls, flowers, donations to charity in his honor, word of concern etc.
We will miss him for a long time. My grandson, Stone, said, "don't be
sad,
Big Daddy, I loved him too." that rattled me for a 2 1/2 year old to
say.
Thanks to everyone that has been a part of getting Alex for us. The
kindness
they have shown to us during this loss. Alex is buried out in our
backyard
where we spent so much of our off duty time. I would also like to say
thanks
for this website that shares our story. May God Bless Each Of You. We
will
never forget you, Alex and I think of you each time I start to get into
my unit, as I see your decorated grave with flowers and grave marker.
You
were
the best, rest in peace, Buddy!
Steve
& Diane Hunt, Me Too, "Stone"
K9 Alex
& Steve honored by the city of Amory
Steve,
Alex, Dolly, wife,Diane, Reserve
Police officer
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