K-9 Visits Fair Oaks Station's CAC Meeting

The Fair Oaks Citizen Advisory Committee invited officers to give a presentation on the Fairfax County Police Department's K-9 unit at the group's monthly meeting March 29.

Officers Jason Herbert and Mike Riccio talked about the unit and showed off their dogs, Thunder and Comak, to the CAC. The CAC which comprises residents who come to the meetings to stay apprised of safety issues in their neighborhood and to present concerns to their district's officers.

Herbert explained the importance of the K-9 unit, which is not tied to one specific district station and is made up of 13 officers and their dogs, with the majority of dogs trained as dual-purpose, meaning they are able to do both patrol and narcotics work.

"We're able to assist pretty much any other entity within the police department," Herbert said. "We've even got four dogs dedicated to our SWAT team. They'll go on every single call for SWAT."

For patrol work, the dogs can track and locate suspects and missing persons. In additon, the dogs are trained for article searches, such as items a suspect may have dropped while fleeing a crime scene.

"My little girl and my dog are like peas in a pod," Riccio said.

For narcotics, the dogs have the ability to track seven odors of narcotics: marijuana, cocaine, crack, methamphetamine, PCP, heroin and ecstasy.

The become a major part of the officers' lives, Herbert said. They work with them all day, then come home with them. More often than not, officers choose to integrate their K-9s into the family.

"I have three kids, my smallest being 4. My 4-year-old feeds him every single day," Herbert said. "She thinks he's the best thing since sliced bread. But, of course, we always have to keep an eye him because he's dog and mistakes can happen, just like with any other dog."

When the dogs are ready to retire, the officers have the choice to keep them.

"I've never seen an officer send so much time with their dogs and not choose to keep them after their retirement," Herbert said.

But there is the downside: vet bills. While a part of the police department, the veterinarian bills are picked up by the department. Once they're in retirement, the officer then takes on the costs of owning the dog.

"If you think about what these dogs do in the eight or nine years in the unit, you can imagine why he's being retired. Usually he's getting up in age, getting sick or his legs have debilitated, that sort of thing," Herbert said.

But for now, they're having fun training their dogs to get better and better.

"The dogs are super intelligent. They're super reliable. They're great companions. They're so much," Herbert said. "It's amazing how much you can connect to an animal and how much gratification you get out of it."

CAPTAIN'S LOG

At the CAC meeting, Capt. Ron Lantz recapped a recent meeting with the deputy chiefs regarding the state of the district, covering statistics from January through March. Lantz said overall crime in the district is down 18 percent. The number of juvenile runaways saw the largest spike, but Lantz said having Less Secure Shelter Home within the Fair Oaks Station District explained that statistic.

"They were very impressed with what's going on in Fair Oaks and how we're running things," Lantz said. "And one of the things I pressed upon with them is how we do stuff like [], morale activities. We're coming up on three years of pay freezes, and I'm afraid it might be four, and it's things like this [and the CAC] that we do for morale."

Lantz also went through some recent crimes and trends, such as a few break-ins and vandalism instances in Franklin Farms in Oak Hill, where two KinderCare centers had been hit twice each. Lantz said they've narrowed down the suspects and they know teenagers are to blame.

"There's really no major issues. Our biggest issue is traffic. Speeding, wrecks, that type of thing," Lantz said.

Lantz stressed he is always focused on keeping drunken drivers off the road. This year, DWI arrests are up 66 percent.

"It's a double-edged sword. You're happy we're getting them off the streets, but it just means they're still there, not getting a cab home or friend to drive after drinking," he said.

GOODBYE, HELLO

The CAC meeting also included a farewell to Lt. John Naylor, who is now working with Internal Affairs. Naylor has been with the Fairfax County Police Department for more than 23 years.

But Naylor's departure meant Fair Oaks welcomed a new lieutenant to the station. Capt. Ron Lantz introduced the CAC to the new assistant commander, Lt. Dan Townsend, who transferred from the Mount Vernon Station to fill the vacancy left by Naylor.

Townsend said he is excited to work at the Fair Oaks station.

"We're very blessed here at this station to have incredible talent and motivated men and woman who want to go out and do the job," Townsend said.

The next CAC meeting is scheduled for 7 p.m. April 26 at the Fair Oaks District Station.