| Marco's Catches |
stop it...search it...seize it...
To Host a Seminar, attend one, or a question for Greg,
Stop it...Search it...Seize it...
PSD MARCO service 10/1992-6/2001
| THE"ADDICTION"forCRIMINAL INTERDICTIONANDPATROLLING |
| True Stories of Marco's Greatest Apprehensions and Drug Arrests "The Cold, Long Snow Track" |
One “catch” that Marco received a special award called the
Superintendent’s Group Citation was for an apprehension on a cold late
evening. Marco did a winter track with an apprehension at the end of the
track after a failure by the suspect to comply with my commands.
Marco had always been a really good tracker. He had made several
successful tracks of suspects during his job as a State Patrol K-9; from the guy
who fled into a cornfield who had a pretty sweet setup with an elaborate
marijuana harvesting operation in northern Hall County to another guy that
had fled on foot from some of our drug agents who were trying to arrest him on
a warrant for some drug sales.
This first guy with the marijuana harvesting operation had arose some
suspicion while driving a bicycle down a county road and then when a local
resident confronted him, he literally picked up the bicycle and threw it across
the fence into a fully grown cornfield. He wasn't a huge large scale criminal but
did have a pretty nice one-man harvesting setup he had been pretty
successful on.
Soon the NSP’s Airwing aircraft arrived and Marco and myself along with the
constant backup of George Scott started a track at the last known spot this
guy was seen. Marco was immediately on the track and we were soon in the 9
foot-tall corn stalks tracking this guy. It was hot, muggy and downright
miserable. Log story short, with Marco tight on this guys track, we flushed him
out of the field and he then ran across the road and then into an adjacent
cornfield.
The aircraft spotted him as he fled the field crossing the county road and
right back into another field so we soon followed. After we entered the other
field, Marco again got right on this guys track. When we were about 300 yards
inside the field Marco located the guy who must have figured we were hot on
his heels and instead of continuing to run away he stopped and then tried to
hide himself lying on the ground under some cornstalks. That guy wasn’t so
lucky.
The night Marco was successful in the cold winter snow field started out in our
Headquarters Troop Area located in the Capitol city of Lincoln and the area is a
fifteen county area. A suspect wanted out of Texas on several Sexual Assaults
of a Child offenses as well as a weapons violation was in our area the Patrol
learned.
Ralph Hurkey had been located in our state on the eastern edge of my Troop
Area but still inside the Headquarters troop area in Seward County. He had
been located by good old fashioned police work on behalf of our agency and
the authorities in Texas. The HDQ SWAT had been assembled with intelligence
he was hiding out in a rural farm residence in Seward County. With surveillance
on the farm soon arriving and the HDQ SWAT soon to make their entry, no one
was aware that some way this guy had slipped away less than 30 minutes
before the surveillance had arrived.
So the flash-bangs and tactical entry was all for not but soon after
interviewing the suspects inside the rural farmstead, it was learned that the
wanted man had relocated to another farm around twenty miles away. This
time the home that he was allegedly in was in our Troop Area; but with an
already assembled SWAT team it only made sense for them to try and get this
guy at the second home. Unfortunately just before they arrived he had again
slipped away but this time on foot. He had been tipped off.
Since I was Team Leader for our central Troop C Team I soon received a
phone call from our dispatch center. I was home enjoying a scheduled day off
and was advised of a callout requesting our SWAT Team to assist the HDQ
Team. I didn’t receive a lot of information but was told the team needed to
assemble rapidly because of a guy that had fled on foot. There was no request
for Marco but that’s probably because it’s a ‘given’ that when called out for
whatever capacity, a dog-handler always should have his dog with him.
So after I quickly got dressed, I ran to the outside kennel and retrieved
Marco. He saw I was running and he immediately became excited. I unlocked
the kennel and he immediately ran out running right to my Patrol unit. I
opened the tailgate to my truck and then unlocking the rear door to his
patrol/kennel he jumped in. We were off. I had learned we were to meet just
off U.S. Highway 81 over in York County. This was not far and I knew I would be
there before the rest of the Team who mainly resided in the Grand Island area.
When I got within five miles from the Interchange on Interstate 80 that
junctions with U.S. 81, I got a call from Sgt. Mike Kerby. Mike was our Head Dog
trainer and the first words out of his mouth were, “Hey Go, (my nickname) you
got Marco?” “Yep” I answered and Mike explained this guy had fled on foot
out the back of a farmhouse and the HDQ guys were holding tight for the dog.
When I showed up near U.S. 81 I was directed to the farm which was about five
minutes from the interchange. AI arrived and soon was getting briefed by Sgt.
Russ Stanczyk who is a good friend of mine and at the time was the TL (Team
Leader) for the HDQ Team. He said this guy was most likely armed and that a
request for the Air-Wings helicopter had been made. He said that the pilots
said they would be there as quick as possible but they were gonna have to
switch out the FLIR (Forward Looking In-fraRed) device from one of the Air-
Wings fixed wing planes to the Bell helicopter.
Russ also said this guy was someway getting information that we were after
him from the first residence so he was hell-bent on getting away. Only thing
was, that this was a Texas boy and we were right now in the heart of a cold
Nebraska winter. It had snowed eight inches two days before and the area he
had fled into was nothing but snow covered rural Nebraska. We didn’t think
the Texas guy would last long in this kind of climate but we knew we had to find
him then deal with his condition.
As soon as I had gotten the briefing from Russ with Mike standing there I was
told that three of my Team members were within fifteen minutes from arriving. I
decided to wait that crucial fifteen minutes for my guys to work the area with
Marco and myself along with a partial amount from HDQ’s Team.
I knew the guys on their way were George Scott, Buck Duis and Jeff Wilcynski.
Like I have said before, George was constantly around in the years I had
Marco. Buck is a real good friend of mine and at the time he was a new dog
handler with the PSD division and Jeff was practically a neighbor of mine who
was new on the Team but an excellent Operator. So once they all arrived, I
briefed them and then took the members from HDQ’s Team to include Frank
Peck. Frank’s been a great friend of mine since 1992 when I first met him in
October ‘92 at Dog camp. That was when he and I spent hundred of hours for
weeks and weeks as a couple of the Patrol’s newest dog handlers.
I told Frank that I would start Marco on a track with his Team members on
my left and my Team on my right while we worked in a wedge formation having
Frank in the middle of the wedge and myself and Marco up on the top. A
wedge is actually a “V, but upside down. So Marco and me were the tip of the
upside “V” and the team members were the sides with good old Frank in the
middle calling out our direction of travel and movements to the command
post.
As soon as we got started from the back of the farm residence where Hurkey
had fled, Marco was “on it”. We started the track and moved over terrain of all
sorts. We were going through pastures, over roadways and through tree lines.
All the time we did this, we were traversing over snow that at times was gone
(on the roadways-they were just ice now) to snow that was several inches to
literally snow that was several feet deep. The deep snow was when Hurkey
would find culverts (tunnels) under the roads which the ditches would be filled
with deep snow.
We started heading now towards a farmstead a mile away. As we got close
we had to cross several fences and eventually saw it was a farm that had
several large grain bins, a large barn and several feedlots. But there were no
signs of activity. No livestock and no home to speak of. Just another typical
farm of the past that no one resided at but the land was still farmed. It looked
as though the farm was in fairly good shape it just was mainly a storage place
for farm machinery in the barn and the feedlots looked as thought they had
recently had livestock with trampled snow everywhere.
But once we were on the property, Marco didn’t track towards the barn or
the grain bins. Instead he tracked to a fence we had to cross and then Marco
went along the side of a fence line towards a ditch that had trees sporadically
along what was probably a dried up creek bed. Marco tracked right to a small
cedar tree and started to alert all over it. The cedar was only about five foot
tall and looked broken down. It was almost bent over. But Marco was all over it
sniffing and hunting. I told the team to really keep their eyes open because
Marco was very excited now.
But soon Marco was off on the track from this tree back towards an open
field. We knew we were on the track very often because of the footprints we
would see in the snow. But many times these footprints would be covered
because the snow was blowing. Yes, we have wind here in Nebraska, and
when you combine that with cold air and snow, it makes life a little hard. So we
were in the middle of this cold weather tracking this guy and had now been at
it for almost fifty minutes.
One time Marco tracked down a rural roadway until he started to go off the
side and we saw there were deep foot prints and we knew we were over top of
a culvert. We knew Hurkey had fled under here, so the plan was simple: Yell out
the commands for the suspect to show himself or respond, or, the dog was
coming on down. So I briefed the command post via Frank and the team
members to be ready. Then I yelled “State Patrol, sound off or I’ll send in the
dog!” this was repeated several times and these commands always excited
Marco so he knew what was next. No more tracking, its criminal catching time.
I released Marco from the long thirty foot tracking lead and he ran down the hill
into the dark tunnel and we heard nothing. I recalled Marco and he came
back and I redeployed him. This was in case the guy was in the culvert hiding
somewhere.
Again, nothing was heard, and I again recalled Marco. We then tactically
entered the culvert. This one was almost six foot tall, ten feet long and about
fifteen wide. Hurkey wasn’t here but he sure had been. We found a partial
cigarette lying on the snow and we couldn’t believe this guy was stopping to
take a smoke break.
This was getting exhausting and cold and frustrating. But soon the helicopter
had arrived from its base location of Lincoln. As the helicopter arrived it
watched the Team for some time and saw from where the track had
originated (the farm house) and where we were currently at, and saw the
general direction of travel. The direction of travel was by far not any straight
line. But it was in a south easterly direction. So the helicopter scanned ahead
and their scan hit pay-dirt!
The helicopter was being piloted by my good friend Trooper Ron Rife. He was
assisted by Air-wing sergeant John Olsen “Johnny O”. Ron had been on the
patrol for many years with him being on the Troop C SWAT years earlier. Ron
had been on our Team and it was nothing but a pleasure working with him. So
when I knew he was in the “bird” I knew from experience what Ron would do to
help his fellow troopers.
As Ron and Johnny O flew up ahead they soon spotted a “hot spot” along
the side of a road. They watched it from a distance zooming in the
magnification and soon saw what they had figured. It was him.
Hurkey had a dug himself a “snow cave” in a twenty foot tall snow pile. The
snow pile was up higher than the road on both sides and went for hundreds of
yards along the sides of the road. The snow pile was the result of large snow-
blade machinery having to come in to clear the roads. This particular area of
the road was in a low spot that would “drift” over with deep snow. So the pile
of snow made a place for Hurkey to try and hide.
After the helicopter identified that they had located him, we were picked up
in several vehicles that were following or paralleling us as we moved. So we
now were brought by vehicles close to the “hot spot”. As we were guided into
the pitch-dark, cold air to the location, we slowly climbed the hill of snow. We
were not exactly sure of the suspect’s location and the helicopter had not
illuminated his location with the ‘night-sun’ at our request.
Once we climbed to the top of the snow hill we were actually on top of
another field. So we crossed a fence and as I came in wide ‘slicing the pie’ to
the area, I saw the cave. I started to yell commands “Let me see your hands!”
I yelled this several times but he showed no hands. I could barely see him lying
back in the cave on his back. I then yelled I was going to send a police dog in if
he didn’t show his hands. He still refused. So Marco was deployed in the hole
and soon latched onto Hurkey's right thigh and then transitioned his bite to
Hurkey's arm.
Now that Marco was apprehending him, I knew we were not going to move
in to that position but would actually “bring them to us”. Marco was just one of
a handful of our dogs that was SWAT certified. That meant he had been able
to do many other things in the realm of patrol work that all of our dogs had not
been exposed to.
One of those facets was a technique called “drag-line’ training. This is where
the dog is pulled back towards the handler by the long line. But the object is
that this is done after the dog has made a physical apprehension. This is used in
a dangerous situation and takes a very strong dog because the force is working
in two directions on the dog. The force of the leash being pulled (usually by two
people) and the weight of the suspect that the dog is attached to by the dog
attached with his teeth.
So I pulled Marco with one hand and my gun out trained on the suspect with
my other hand. Soon, seeing that my fellow Team members were covering him,
I holstered my sidearm and then used both hands and pulled on Marco. As I
pulled Marco, this drug Marco backwards which drug Hurkey out of the hole.
Buck went in for the apprehension while Marco was still attached to Hurkey’s
arm.
This is another facet of the SWAT certification with the dog. Being able to
work in close confines with other officers while still on task. I called Marco off the
bite and he soon released, but there was fence in between Hurkey and myself.
This caused Marco to get snagged on the barbwire fence resulting in an injury
to Marco. Marco snagged his thigh on the sharp barb. Later that evening
Marco would need five staples in his thigh to close the wound.
I soon was praising Marco as Buck reached in for the apprehension of Hurkey
placing him in handcuffs.
Hurkey was soon transported to the hospital back in York where Investigator
Bob Frank interviewed him about his fleeing to Nebraska after his charges in
Texas. I arrived at the York hospital to do my own interview of Hurkey.
He was in one of the treatment rooms in the ER and he was still shivering. He
had said that he fled and didn’t know the area so he didn’t really no where to
go. He admitted though along his route he had came to rest in a cedar tree by
sitting practically on top of it in a farmyard and also that he had fled
underneath a culvert . He stated that he did this to rest as he was running
almost the entire way he was fleeing.
I had not been able to really speak with Hurkey until almost and hour after
arriving at the hospital. The doctor said that Hurkey’s’ body temperature had
dropped to 92 degrees when he had been brought in and said it had probably
been lower but knew that SWAT members had provided heat to him once he
had been put inside one of the command post vehicles. The doctor said that
most likely Hurkey would have died in the snow cave had he not been found.
He explained that Hurkey was in stage 2 of hypothermia and was going to be
kept overnight at the hospital. Hurkey was also treated for the bite wounds he
sustained.
Hurkey was lucky in many ways that cold night in York County Nebraska. He
was lucky he didn’t die in a snow hole but more than that; he was lucky it was
Marco called to the task of finding him. Marco came through in a big way on
this apprehension. And it made all of us happy.
Superintendent’s Group Citation was for an apprehension on a cold late
evening. Marco did a winter track with an apprehension at the end of the
track after a failure by the suspect to comply with my commands.
Marco had always been a really good tracker. He had made several
successful tracks of suspects during his job as a State Patrol K-9; from the guy
who fled into a cornfield who had a pretty sweet setup with an elaborate
marijuana harvesting operation in northern Hall County to another guy that
had fled on foot from some of our drug agents who were trying to arrest him on
a warrant for some drug sales.
This first guy with the marijuana harvesting operation had arose some
suspicion while driving a bicycle down a county road and then when a local
resident confronted him, he literally picked up the bicycle and threw it across
the fence into a fully grown cornfield. He wasn't a huge large scale criminal but
did have a pretty nice one-man harvesting setup he had been pretty
successful on.
Soon the NSP’s Airwing aircraft arrived and Marco and myself along with the
constant backup of George Scott started a track at the last known spot this
guy was seen. Marco was immediately on the track and we were soon in the 9
foot-tall corn stalks tracking this guy. It was hot, muggy and downright
miserable. Log story short, with Marco tight on this guys track, we flushed him
out of the field and he then ran across the road and then into an adjacent
cornfield.
The aircraft spotted him as he fled the field crossing the county road and
right back into another field so we soon followed. After we entered the other
field, Marco again got right on this guys track. When we were about 300 yards
inside the field Marco located the guy who must have figured we were hot on
his heels and instead of continuing to run away he stopped and then tried to
hide himself lying on the ground under some cornstalks. That guy wasn’t so
lucky.
The night Marco was successful in the cold winter snow field started out in our
Headquarters Troop Area located in the Capitol city of Lincoln and the area is a
fifteen county area. A suspect wanted out of Texas on several Sexual Assaults
of a Child offenses as well as a weapons violation was in our area the Patrol
learned.
Ralph Hurkey had been located in our state on the eastern edge of my Troop
Area but still inside the Headquarters troop area in Seward County. He had
been located by good old fashioned police work on behalf of our agency and
the authorities in Texas. The HDQ SWAT had been assembled with intelligence
he was hiding out in a rural farm residence in Seward County. With surveillance
on the farm soon arriving and the HDQ SWAT soon to make their entry, no one
was aware that some way this guy had slipped away less than 30 minutes
before the surveillance had arrived.
So the flash-bangs and tactical entry was all for not but soon after
interviewing the suspects inside the rural farmstead, it was learned that the
wanted man had relocated to another farm around twenty miles away. This
time the home that he was allegedly in was in our Troop Area; but with an
already assembled SWAT team it only made sense for them to try and get this
guy at the second home. Unfortunately just before they arrived he had again
slipped away but this time on foot. He had been tipped off.
Since I was Team Leader for our central Troop C Team I soon received a
phone call from our dispatch center. I was home enjoying a scheduled day off
and was advised of a callout requesting our SWAT Team to assist the HDQ
Team. I didn’t receive a lot of information but was told the team needed to
assemble rapidly because of a guy that had fled on foot. There was no request
for Marco but that’s probably because it’s a ‘given’ that when called out for
whatever capacity, a dog-handler always should have his dog with him.
So after I quickly got dressed, I ran to the outside kennel and retrieved
Marco. He saw I was running and he immediately became excited. I unlocked
the kennel and he immediately ran out running right to my Patrol unit. I
opened the tailgate to my truck and then unlocking the rear door to his
patrol/kennel he jumped in. We were off. I had learned we were to meet just
off U.S. Highway 81 over in York County. This was not far and I knew I would be
there before the rest of the Team who mainly resided in the Grand Island area.
When I got within five miles from the Interchange on Interstate 80 that
junctions with U.S. 81, I got a call from Sgt. Mike Kerby. Mike was our Head Dog
trainer and the first words out of his mouth were, “Hey Go, (my nickname) you
got Marco?” “Yep” I answered and Mike explained this guy had fled on foot
out the back of a farmhouse and the HDQ guys were holding tight for the dog.
When I showed up near U.S. 81 I was directed to the farm which was about five
minutes from the interchange. AI arrived and soon was getting briefed by Sgt.
Russ Stanczyk who is a good friend of mine and at the time was the TL (Team
Leader) for the HDQ Team. He said this guy was most likely armed and that a
request for the Air-Wings helicopter had been made. He said that the pilots
said they would be there as quick as possible but they were gonna have to
switch out the FLIR (Forward Looking In-fraRed) device from one of the Air-
Wings fixed wing planes to the Bell helicopter.
Russ also said this guy was someway getting information that we were after
him from the first residence so he was hell-bent on getting away. Only thing
was, that this was a Texas boy and we were right now in the heart of a cold
Nebraska winter. It had snowed eight inches two days before and the area he
had fled into was nothing but snow covered rural Nebraska. We didn’t think
the Texas guy would last long in this kind of climate but we knew we had to find
him then deal with his condition.
As soon as I had gotten the briefing from Russ with Mike standing there I was
told that three of my Team members were within fifteen minutes from arriving. I
decided to wait that crucial fifteen minutes for my guys to work the area with
Marco and myself along with a partial amount from HDQ’s Team.
I knew the guys on their way were George Scott, Buck Duis and Jeff Wilcynski.
Like I have said before, George was constantly around in the years I had
Marco. Buck is a real good friend of mine and at the time he was a new dog
handler with the PSD division and Jeff was practically a neighbor of mine who
was new on the Team but an excellent Operator. So once they all arrived, I
briefed them and then took the members from HDQ’s Team to include Frank
Peck. Frank’s been a great friend of mine since 1992 when I first met him in
October ‘92 at Dog camp. That was when he and I spent hundred of hours for
weeks and weeks as a couple of the Patrol’s newest dog handlers.
I told Frank that I would start Marco on a track with his Team members on
my left and my Team on my right while we worked in a wedge formation having
Frank in the middle of the wedge and myself and Marco up on the top. A
wedge is actually a “V, but upside down. So Marco and me were the tip of the
upside “V” and the team members were the sides with good old Frank in the
middle calling out our direction of travel and movements to the command
post.
As soon as we got started from the back of the farm residence where Hurkey
had fled, Marco was “on it”. We started the track and moved over terrain of all
sorts. We were going through pastures, over roadways and through tree lines.
All the time we did this, we were traversing over snow that at times was gone
(on the roadways-they were just ice now) to snow that was several inches to
literally snow that was several feet deep. The deep snow was when Hurkey
would find culverts (tunnels) under the roads which the ditches would be filled
with deep snow.
We started heading now towards a farmstead a mile away. As we got close
we had to cross several fences and eventually saw it was a farm that had
several large grain bins, a large barn and several feedlots. But there were no
signs of activity. No livestock and no home to speak of. Just another typical
farm of the past that no one resided at but the land was still farmed. It looked
as though the farm was in fairly good shape it just was mainly a storage place
for farm machinery in the barn and the feedlots looked as thought they had
recently had livestock with trampled snow everywhere.
But once we were on the property, Marco didn’t track towards the barn or
the grain bins. Instead he tracked to a fence we had to cross and then Marco
went along the side of a fence line towards a ditch that had trees sporadically
along what was probably a dried up creek bed. Marco tracked right to a small
cedar tree and started to alert all over it. The cedar was only about five foot
tall and looked broken down. It was almost bent over. But Marco was all over it
sniffing and hunting. I told the team to really keep their eyes open because
Marco was very excited now.
But soon Marco was off on the track from this tree back towards an open
field. We knew we were on the track very often because of the footprints we
would see in the snow. But many times these footprints would be covered
because the snow was blowing. Yes, we have wind here in Nebraska, and
when you combine that with cold air and snow, it makes life a little hard. So we
were in the middle of this cold weather tracking this guy and had now been at
it for almost fifty minutes.
One time Marco tracked down a rural roadway until he started to go off the
side and we saw there were deep foot prints and we knew we were over top of
a culvert. We knew Hurkey had fled under here, so the plan was simple: Yell out
the commands for the suspect to show himself or respond, or, the dog was
coming on down. So I briefed the command post via Frank and the team
members to be ready. Then I yelled “State Patrol, sound off or I’ll send in the
dog!” this was repeated several times and these commands always excited
Marco so he knew what was next. No more tracking, its criminal catching time.
I released Marco from the long thirty foot tracking lead and he ran down the hill
into the dark tunnel and we heard nothing. I recalled Marco and he came
back and I redeployed him. This was in case the guy was in the culvert hiding
somewhere.
Again, nothing was heard, and I again recalled Marco. We then tactically
entered the culvert. This one was almost six foot tall, ten feet long and about
fifteen wide. Hurkey wasn’t here but he sure had been. We found a partial
cigarette lying on the snow and we couldn’t believe this guy was stopping to
take a smoke break.
This was getting exhausting and cold and frustrating. But soon the helicopter
had arrived from its base location of Lincoln. As the helicopter arrived it
watched the Team for some time and saw from where the track had
originated (the farm house) and where we were currently at, and saw the
general direction of travel. The direction of travel was by far not any straight
line. But it was in a south easterly direction. So the helicopter scanned ahead
and their scan hit pay-dirt!
The helicopter was being piloted by my good friend Trooper Ron Rife. He was
assisted by Air-wing sergeant John Olsen “Johnny O”. Ron had been on the
patrol for many years with him being on the Troop C SWAT years earlier. Ron
had been on our Team and it was nothing but a pleasure working with him. So
when I knew he was in the “bird” I knew from experience what Ron would do to
help his fellow troopers.
As Ron and Johnny O flew up ahead they soon spotted a “hot spot” along
the side of a road. They watched it from a distance zooming in the
magnification and soon saw what they had figured. It was him.
Hurkey had a dug himself a “snow cave” in a twenty foot tall snow pile. The
snow pile was up higher than the road on both sides and went for hundreds of
yards along the sides of the road. The snow pile was the result of large snow-
blade machinery having to come in to clear the roads. This particular area of
the road was in a low spot that would “drift” over with deep snow. So the pile
of snow made a place for Hurkey to try and hide.
After the helicopter identified that they had located him, we were picked up
in several vehicles that were following or paralleling us as we moved. So we
now were brought by vehicles close to the “hot spot”. As we were guided into
the pitch-dark, cold air to the location, we slowly climbed the hill of snow. We
were not exactly sure of the suspect’s location and the helicopter had not
illuminated his location with the ‘night-sun’ at our request.
Once we climbed to the top of the snow hill we were actually on top of
another field. So we crossed a fence and as I came in wide ‘slicing the pie’ to
the area, I saw the cave. I started to yell commands “Let me see your hands!”
I yelled this several times but he showed no hands. I could barely see him lying
back in the cave on his back. I then yelled I was going to send a police dog in if
he didn’t show his hands. He still refused. So Marco was deployed in the hole
and soon latched onto Hurkey's right thigh and then transitioned his bite to
Hurkey's arm.
Now that Marco was apprehending him, I knew we were not going to move
in to that position but would actually “bring them to us”. Marco was just one of
a handful of our dogs that was SWAT certified. That meant he had been able
to do many other things in the realm of patrol work that all of our dogs had not
been exposed to.
One of those facets was a technique called “drag-line’ training. This is where
the dog is pulled back towards the handler by the long line. But the object is
that this is done after the dog has made a physical apprehension. This is used in
a dangerous situation and takes a very strong dog because the force is working
in two directions on the dog. The force of the leash being pulled (usually by two
people) and the weight of the suspect that the dog is attached to by the dog
attached with his teeth.
So I pulled Marco with one hand and my gun out trained on the suspect with
my other hand. Soon, seeing that my fellow Team members were covering him,
I holstered my sidearm and then used both hands and pulled on Marco. As I
pulled Marco, this drug Marco backwards which drug Hurkey out of the hole.
Buck went in for the apprehension while Marco was still attached to Hurkey’s
arm.
This is another facet of the SWAT certification with the dog. Being able to
work in close confines with other officers while still on task. I called Marco off the
bite and he soon released, but there was fence in between Hurkey and myself.
This caused Marco to get snagged on the barbwire fence resulting in an injury
to Marco. Marco snagged his thigh on the sharp barb. Later that evening
Marco would need five staples in his thigh to close the wound.
I soon was praising Marco as Buck reached in for the apprehension of Hurkey
placing him in handcuffs.
Hurkey was soon transported to the hospital back in York where Investigator
Bob Frank interviewed him about his fleeing to Nebraska after his charges in
Texas. I arrived at the York hospital to do my own interview of Hurkey.
He was in one of the treatment rooms in the ER and he was still shivering. He
had said that he fled and didn’t know the area so he didn’t really no where to
go. He admitted though along his route he had came to rest in a cedar tree by
sitting practically on top of it in a farmyard and also that he had fled
underneath a culvert . He stated that he did this to rest as he was running
almost the entire way he was fleeing.
I had not been able to really speak with Hurkey until almost and hour after
arriving at the hospital. The doctor said that Hurkey’s’ body temperature had
dropped to 92 degrees when he had been brought in and said it had probably
been lower but knew that SWAT members had provided heat to him once he
had been put inside one of the command post vehicles. The doctor said that
most likely Hurkey would have died in the snow cave had he not been found.
He explained that Hurkey was in stage 2 of hypothermia and was going to be
kept overnight at the hospital. Hurkey was also treated for the bite wounds he
sustained.
Hurkey was lucky in many ways that cold night in York County Nebraska. He
was lucky he didn’t die in a snow hole but more than that; he was lucky it was
Marco called to the task of finding him. Marco came through in a big way on
this apprehension. And it made all of us happy.
| Millions of Vehicles will pass you by during your career... Many of them with criminal activity...Will you do something about it? |