Photo By Steve Carter/TPD: Thatcher Police K-9 Officer Apollo is officially now on the job.
Staff Reports
THATCHER – The Thatcher Police Department announced the beginning of service of its first narcotic detection dog, Apollo.
K-9 Officer Apollo, a 2-year-old Belgian Malinois, and his handler, Thatcher Officer JR Maner, recently completed the K-9 Academy at K-9 Defense in Scottsdale, Arizona, where they were certified in Patrol and Narcotic Detection.
With the passage of recreational use of cannabis in Arizona, a number of narcotic detection dogs have been retired due to lack of use. That was the case with former Pima K-9 Officer Rosie, who was trained to detect methamphetamine, heroin, and cocaine as well as cannabis but could not differentiate between the drugs when alerting to a positive reaction. Since a potential drug defendant could argue Rosie was smelling legal cannabis when the alert was given, that could result in having an otherwise good drug search and seizure and subsequent hard drug charges thrown out by a judge.
While Apollo is trained to detect a variety of illicit drugs, he is not trained on cannabis, therefore any alert given by Apollo should be for only illegal substances.
