K-9 Derrek's ability to successfully track and find suspects has led the Vanderburgh County Prosecutors Office to Appeal an antiquated (1927) Indiana Law that does not allow a police K-9's track to a suspect to be admissible in court. A track K-9 Derrek ran on an armed robbery suspect in March of 1998 led the prosecutors office and the Attorney General's Office to appeal this law based on the number of successful tracks K-9 Derrek had run. This was undertaken before K-9 Derrek's untimely death. A change of Indiana State Law (brought about by his abilities as a police K-9) would benefit all Law Enforcement Officers in the state of Indiana and be Derrek's biggest legacy.

K-9 Derrek was given the "Monza" award by the United States Police Canine Association at their 1998 awards banquet. The "Monza" award is given annually to a police K-9 that exhibits bravery and heroism in the act of fulfilling it's duties as a police K-9. Additionally, the Indiana Association of Veterinarians awarded K-9 Derrek it's first ever "Hero Dog" for the year of 1998. Also K-9 Derrek was posthumously awarded the "Gold Metal Award" for his actions in this incident at the February meeting of the Evansville Police Merit Commission. He was the first K-9 from Evansville to receive this award. Additionally K-9 Derrek's apprehension was deemed the August "Catch of the Month" for region 5 of the United States Police Canine Association (This encompasses the states of Indiana, Ohio, & Kentucky). This catch was also deemed the "Catch of the Quarter" for the third quarter of 1998 by USPCA Region 5. The USPCA further decided that this was the top catch by a K-9 team in the United States in 1999 and awarded it it's highest honor, the National 
"Catch of the Year" for 1998.

The Evansville Police Department also awarded K-9 Derrek it's "Catch of the Year" for 1998.
Derrek was a member of the Evansville Police Dept. K-9 Team that finished second at the USPCA National Dog Trials in 1994, 1995, 1996, & 1997. In 1995, K-9 Derrek placed 11th overall at the National Dog Trials.
The citizens of Evansville contributed over $13,000 towards the purchase of a replacement for K-9 Derrek.
The City of Evansville filed a lawsuit against the suspect for the loss of K-9 Derrek. After a jury trial, the suspect was ordered to pay $50,000 compensatory and an additional $50,000 punitive damages to the City of Evansville. This makes K-9 Derrek the first $100,000 K-9 in the history of the Evansville Police Department. 

K-9  BEN
My new partner Ben teamed with three other K-9's from our department and won the 2002
 United States Police Canine Association's National Department Championship. 
It is the first time we have won the championship since K-9 Derrek was killed. 
Dave MOLINET
UPDATE
We have 5 K-9 patrol teams on our department. All of these dogs are German Shepherds. A typical tour of duty for the K-9 units on our department is third shift. The officers call in service and try and stay available for K-9 runs. They will back up officers on runs but they are seldom dispatched as the primary car to a run. We do not get stuck taking a lot of reports, doing accidents, or handling a lot of B.S. runs because we have to be available if a K-9 run comes out. A lot of smaller departments do not have this luxury and their K-9 handlers have to act as regular motor patrol officers and cover a beat or district in addition to handling their K-9 related duties. On a slow night our officers will do some form of training such as running a practice track or making a narcotics hide. There is seldom a night that our K-9 officers are not called for some type of K-9 related search. Most of our searches come in the form of tracking a felony suspect or a building search for a felony suspect. All of our dogs are also dual purpose (patrol as well as narcotics work). Each of our 5 teams does about 50 narcotics searches a year. 
 
We also have two K-9 teams that are strictly narcotic detectors. One is a German Shepherd and the other is a yellow lab. They do not do patrol work. They do about 150 searches in a year. Most of the time one of them works dayshift and the other works second shift. The officers are assigned to our drug interdiction unit and work the highways and high crime areas doing traffic stops. They have an additional human partner assigned to them to assist on the traffic stops.
 
We are just now training an explosive detection dog. He is a black lab. He will work dayshift and be available whenever our bomb technicians are called to a run. All of our units are required to be tested and certified annually by the United States Police Canine Association (USPCA). However there are a lot of other K-9 organizations that do certification tests also. I may be prejudiced but I believe that the USPCA id the best organization.