K9 Incident Debrief- K9 Graffit

Hey everybody, we'll get to the show in just a minute. I think it's going to be a good show today. It's a debrief. I haven't done too many of those. I did a few on my old podcast and haven't done any on this new podcast and I'm going to be doing some more. So if you know of an incident that would be good to share, kind of like what you're getting ready to listen to, send me the details and maybe some contact information.

Debriefs are always valuable. I think, you know, we can always learn from the good and the bad that happened in some of these critical incidents. So, if you have any or you were involved with one yourself, shoot me an email and we'll get you on the show and share some of the information. It's always good for everybody to hear everybody else's experiences and we can all learn, you know, either good or bad from all these incidents. So, we'll get to that in just a minute.

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Kevin Sheldell with K9 Services. And with that, let's get to the show. Music.

This is the Police K9 Training Podcast with Jeff Meyer. Join us for each episode to get real-world advice from K9 professionals who have experience on the street. Each episode will focus on up-to-date information that you can use on the street. Spend about 30 minutes with us each week as part of your training day. Our goal at Police K-9 Training is to make every K-9 team be the best they can be. Music.

Welcome to the Police K-9 Training Podcast. I'm your host, Jeff Meyer. Today I'm sitting at the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office here real close to my home. I'm sitting with a couple of the handlers from the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office. And we're here today to talk about an incident that happened about a year and a half ago now and Jeffco right here in Golden, Colorado, they cover a large area and in Golden, one of the Jeffco handlers had what we all don't want to have happen.

The dog saved his life but in the process the dog lost his own life. So I brought a couple, the trainer and the handler here today to sit down talk to them and just talk about how the incident happened and then kind of the aftermath of it. So if it ever happens to you, maybe some of the planning that happened beforehand, what was good and what was bad, and some of the training and just kind of the whole incident. So I'll introduce, the first I'm going to introduce the trainer for the Jefferson

County Sheriff's Department, Jim Valbert. So how are you today, Jim? Good. Thanks for having us, Jeff. Absolutely. Thanks for jumping on here. What's your background and how long have you been doing at doing this for a long time. I started with Jeffco in 1989. Short stint in the jail and then transferred to patrol. Started working my first dog in 2005. Oh, I'm sorry, 1999. And then became a trainer in 2005. I'm currently working my fourth dog.

And you're going to be around a while. I know you're not. Mixed. Yeah. I think I've got a few more years left in me, so I'm going to keep going for a little longer. Good for you as long as you're doing well and you're having fun. So how many teams do you guys have? We have six dogs. Dogs on patrol, all dual-purpose dogs, and then one single-purpose explosive dog that works up in the courthouse. Okay. And in all that training, you've trained many, many dogs over the years,

so. Yeah, quite a few. Yeah. And the handle here is Zach Oliver. And how are you doing today, Zach? I'm good. Thank you. So I guess, you know, we're just going to jump right into this. First, you know, do your background. Just kind of talk about how long you've been a handler and how long you've been with the department. I've been with the Sheriff's Office for about 10 years now. I was a handler for a year and a half before the incident, which is about a year and a few months

changed since then. Yeah. So you've been a handler now about three years? About three years. Yeah. So let's just jump right into it. Let's just talk about the incident. And I guess we'll just start with, you know, talk about, you know, when you got your dog, we'll work up to the incident, but you, you came here, you were assigned a dog. Let's talk about the dog. And this is the dog that we lost. So let's just talk about getting assigned to the unit and your training and what went on there.

Yeah. So I was a decoy for about four years, which is like a, I help out with the trainings every Wednesday. I take the bites, help train the dogs. So I kind of knew Graffiti. Graffiti was actually canine for a different handler and he retired, but the canine was still in his prime. So I got the option to keep graffiti and I was obviously going to jump all over that because he was such a solid dog.

So when I became a handler, I got graffiti and he was already pretty much certified, well-polished and it was really to train me to learn the ropes myself. So luckily it was kind of nice having such a well-trained dog as my first canine. And he was a, he was a dual purpose shepherd, right? How old was he? That's correct. And when I got him, he was about eight and a half. Eight and a half, but he was still very healthy. Yeah.

So he was a, even the vet actually asked me, what, is he five or six years old? And I was like, actually he's about 10, almost going to turn 10. So he was definitely very active, very fit and healthy. And that's kind of a side note. I know you guys are on the same page. A lot of agencies, when I'm traveling around the country, they have this arbitrary number, they retire their dogs. And I know you guys don't do that, right? If the dog's healthy.

As long as they're healthy and still go to work. Yeah. Keep working. So there's a lot of agencies that say at eight, they got to retire him. And then you have a miserable dog because I assume this dog wanted to keep working and was still working fine at the time. Oh, yeah, definitely. So you went through your training and then about that first year and a half, it was more probably just learning to keep up with him, I imagine. Oh, yeah. I learned a lot. Yeah. Yeah.

And had you had a lot of searches and street deployments with him before this night? Yeah. Yeah, we had a couple of street bites that were really successful and a lot of non-physical apprehensions. Our county is pretty big, so luckily we have a lot of other cities that we can assist you that don't have canines, like Wheat Ridge and Goldenville only has one dog, so we help them out a lot on my shift and same with Lakewood.

So we got a lot of use overall, which I think definitely helped me learn a lot of ropes before that call. Sure, sure. So then let's move to the night. What was the date in the night of the call? It was February 13th, early in the morning, about 1230 at night, almost 1 a.m. And that night, if I remember right, just from reading the news, it really wasn't a, you know, we can have kind of crappy weather here at that time, but it wasn't that bad of weather that night, was it?

It's just a little colder in temperature given the time of year, but the weather was fine. No snow really or anything? No snow, no rain. So what was the call? I was at the precinct actually in South Jefferson County, and I got an assist to help out Golden Police Department and School of Mines Police Department. They share a channel. They're within our county, approximately about maybe a 15 minute drive emergent from where I was at.

They told me that they had a vehicle that they tried to contact, a male slunched over the wheel. They woke him up and the car took off on them, possibly intoxicated or whatever the case. Yeah. Golden Police officer, and he starts running. down 19th Street towards the School

of Mine campus. I don't think the Golden Officer knew he had the handgun at that time, but as he's in the foot pursuit and catching up to the suspect, and he's just a few feet away, the suspect turns around and points his gun right at him. The officer immediately dives for cover at that point.

So the officer then starts making a perimeter at that specific, and that's when they call for K-9, saying that this guy just had a gun, he pointed at us, and now he took off in the direction of the School of Mine campus out of view. So that's the only information I have when I get there. And on your shift at that time, so you're going to the call, were you the only dog working? Yes. And they had somewhat of a perimeter or they were trying to establish one? Yes.

What was your backup officers, like patrol officers, or were you familiar with the guys who were going to cover you or were you using? Not so much because school of mine is when I had to think of one, maybe two officers on at the time. I think Golden maybe had three that were there. And then Jefferson County, we had some north cars and south. So there's probably like seven or eight of us.

I think state patrol even showed up two of theirs. So we have a lot of mutual aid here happening, which kind of makes it harder because we're all on different radio channels, as you know. And there wasn't enough time. I think we're trying to get on common channel, but it still takes time to get all the agencies. So I know when I first started, we were not on the common channel yet. Yeah. And when you stepped off, the cover officers you had, what was that team comprised of?

When I got there, I asked them, where did this happen? Where do I have to go? And they were still trying to figure out the perimeter. And my sergeant actually said, hey, just take two cops with you. Okay. So I kind of got in his shoes. I picked the one officer who I've worked with with cannon before who happened to be the golden officer that got the gun pointed at him. Yeah. And since he knows where the suspect last took off from.

Yeah. And he's still in the right state of mind because he's an emotionally fit guy. He said, yeah, I'll come with you. So he got a rifle, came with me and I picked another cover officer that I trusted. Yeah. From my own department to come with me as well for the track.

And that's a good point that I want to make. And clearly you'd been on, You know, you'd had enough area searches and stuff before at that point, but I've been on a lot of those, and I know, Jim, you have too, that a lot of times when you show up here, the Canaan officer, like at least in my department, it was all my department, but there was cops I didn't know because we were a big department, but a lot of people work in agencies like yours where you're going to show up, there's cops around.

But I really like the point that you just said that you really kind of thought about your taking, like you, you knew that the one golden officer had a gun pointed at him, you know, he could have been kind of checked out at that point, like, holy, you know, I almost died. I don't want to go or whatever, you know, but you took the time to not just grab the first two uniforms you see and go down range with them, you know, and I assume that was thought out by you.

You didn't just, I mean, you could have grabbed anybody, but you found two that you were happy with, right? Yeah. I mean, just for safety reasons, I'm sure we've all been on tracks with our agencies where you just don't know those people yet or trust, are they going to make the right decision or make a decision when the time happens or will they freeze? So luckily with our department, they usually let us always pick who we go with.

Sometimes I can't help it if it's a call on wheat Ridge, they have their contact team, but I'll still bring at least one or two people I trust with me. And, and I just, I think that, you know, I mean, there's, that's a great point and I just, you know, and a lot of times, you know, obviously time is of the essence here. He's in a campus, and I know that campus is going at the time. There are students who live there on campus. Can't have him running around on the college.

But we also aren't just going to jump out of the car and run downrange. Obviously, you were moving, but you were making some deliberate plans and steps and stuff. So you've got your cover officers. You start to go downrange. They're still establishing the perimeter, but you guys do a lot of tracking. So did you just start and try to try to pick up a track right where they last saw him? Is that?

Yes. And actually, right. I was just getting my canine out of the car, a state trooper in the area so that they might have seen the suspect. They had somebody with a flashlight walking through towards a golf course, like through the golf course. This time of night, that's not very common. Yeah. It was in the direction that the suspect last took off, but it was kind of pretty distant where I'm like, wow, that was fast. Yeah. But a lot of the resources started shifting to, you know,

how they are. We were like, let's start making what available cars we have surrounding the golf course in case that person gets out. Yeah. At that time, I'm like, well, we need to start tracking now so we could try and catch up if it goes out that direction. So I did get the canine and then I got my two officers, we started tracking it from the last known location, which was the car. The last, not a possible sighting, right? You want to.

Yeah, cause I wanted the odor from the vehicle, like the passenger seat and cause he's slumping the car, so his odor might be pretty strong there. So we started tracking from the car and the officer I was with said, yeah, that's correct. That's the right direction that we were going in. So he verified what we're doing. Yeah. We basically walked down the street from where he last observed him and continue the track.

The canine, once he was down the street, we're going over the, the highway, which is a six Avenue right there. We crossed into a little more of like a grassy overpass of it, which is good because I'm assuming the suspect probably kind of veered off that way. And then we tracked for probably about another another 75 yards over the overpass. And then what we were heading towards was the school mine housing units.

But before there's kind of like a embankment of trees and there's also like a little dirt walking path in between, but it's full of trees, bushes, and like a lot of coverage of oil. And it's probably from the top of the hill we're at to the bottom, I would say it's at least, you know, 50 yards down there at a pretty steep incline.

The canine was tracked. Let me just ask you. So at that point when you're going and you're seeing the trees and stuff and the sites of where this guy might've been on a golf course, now are you, are you thinking the golf course is probably out now based on where your dog is or is he kind of still going that direction? I wasn't sure because he could cross what we're going to and then start going south, which goes towards the golf course. So it's definitely possible that he made it that direction.

It just means that he continued to go east, which is the direction we're going and then start veering a little south. So it kind of made sense. It could have. of. At this time, my canine, who was on the 30 foot tracking lead was pulling super hard. And from my training with that canine specifically, I could tell he's definitely on something.

Also a little hesitant or worried because i wouldn't let him work as fast as he usually does because we're going to a school of mine campus and we're like what if kids are walking down there yeah homeless people maybe so that actually crossed my mind i even mentioned it to my cover officer like he has he's on something but it's like we got to make sure that there's not students yeah homeless people yeah as we all do yeah so if you want yeah go ahead so once we continue tracking down that

embankment i hope i've really slowed him down which in hindsight i hate because you know i slowed him down to try and see what we're doing i put a flashlight up and as we're going down the hill he went about 10 feet down the hill and then that's when the gunshots happen it's a pitch black the suspect was behind the tree right there just waiting for us basically straight yeah he later on admitted he saw us and he saw us coming so he was behind that tree

waiting for us we didn't see him in the pitch black but i saw the muzzle flash and we barely just came to like the crossing of the hill where we could see him, but my canine was already down there with him. Yeah, yeah. I let go of the lead, gave the bike command, and then my cover officer shot a few rounds from his .223 at him, and it just went quiet after that. I kept giving my bike command. We kind of just kneeled down to take cover of the hill and see if we can hear anything, see anything.

I shot a flashlight, didn't see the suspect from our location because he's just probably a few feet down in the foliage.

I did hear my canine have that yelp that you get almost like a injury and that was it then quiet yeah we gave out lots of commands we're yelling obviously saying shots fired we need a perimeter over here yeah and then that's where things kind of slow down but you know in the instance it feels pretty fast oh yeah yeah yeah but to be uh start getting all the all units who cover this big ravine that we have here which is a pretty

easy place to isolate luckily yeah and at this point obviously you know you're worried about your dog any of us would be but you still have a whole lot of work to do so you're so were you still was your cover officers kind of helping set that perimeter or was somebody, outside or are you still kind of having to run the whole show from where you're at. At first, I'm still kind of running out. My cover officer with me is airing out the radio traffic, which is good.

Obviously, when I dropped the lead, I pulled out my gun. I'm trying to try and spotlight things and see if I could see anything without putting myself down the ravine or further in there. My other cover officer split off a little bit more to get a little bit more distance just so we're not in the same, you know, so close to the same view.

So we kind of did a little bit of the perimeter on our end and then we were just asking for the other units to surround it on the other sides, which worked out. It happened pretty quick because everybody was so close. Yeah, yeah. So we did lock down the area and contain it pretty fast. And I mean, it had to be a horrible feeling. What's going through your mind at that point? I mean, you've got a lot going on.

It didn't click to me. Like I had a bad feeling, obviously. I knew he got shot, but it's still work mode, you know? Yeah, yeah. So at first, like I said, I was getting the bite commands, and then it's quiet. Then I start calling back to me. Yeah. Even watching the body camera, I didn't realize how many times I was calling back, but I was like, your feet, you know, here. Yeah, yeah. Loose, whatever I could do. Yeah, yeah. Trying to mix it up, quiet.

Yeah. And obviously that was a, that's a bad feeling because after probably about 10 seconds of nonstop commands, it hits you. Yeah. Yeah. So we air that out, you know, the cannon's supposed to get down with the suspect. Yeah. And there was no movement from the suspect. Nope. So I'm, my thought is that he's in that same spot waiting for us. Yeah. Yeah. Behind that tree or the bushes, whatever we can't see. Yeah. What do you think the distance was? They actually ended up measuring it out

later on. Yeah. Because I went, we actually walked down there after everything was said and done, we walked down and saw ourselves. They said from the lead, cause he's on a 30 foot lead. Yeah. From where I was at, it was about, I think we were from the edge, like 15 feet. And then he was about 10 feet down. So my 30 foot lead is where Kufi died at. Yeah. He died, they said probably about right at his feet. Okay. So, because he shot him pretty much point blank.

Yeah. Yeah. Um, as he got pretty close to him and I guess it was probably about, you know, 25 feet straight and another eight feet down. Yeah. If you're talking about distance. Sure. Sure. But, and, and clearly from the way you're describing, Grafitte was going in and making apprehension. That was his first shot was to the dog. Yes. And then did he fire more rounds towards you guys? No, he didn't. I, I just told Micah, I thought, I think, I thought the suspect shot two rounds.

Yeah. And then I think we shot, you know, a few more rounds after that. Yeah. But I guess what the suspect ended up later on saying is that he shot intentionally at the ground to try and scare the dog away or scare us. Sure. Antigens that happened to hit the dog. And that he never wanted to shoot out officers or kill us, which really sucks because our DA's office wouldn't take attempt to murder a police officer or anything. Yeah. Which in my mind, that's just a straight ambush.

Exactly. Especially because he admitted that he knew we were police with a police canine. And he saw the police markings on him. Because I shot my flash on my dog trying to see. So I backlit my dog. And he saw the vested sheriff's office on it. And he was watching for you. So he was watching, he knew, and he had his firearm on his hand and he made the choice to shoot into the ground. Yeah. Which in my mind, as a cop, you're like, well, this is an attempt to murder

a police officer. That's why we fired back because we thought we realized we were in danger. Absolutely. And then, but yeah, so I guess later on they determined that they couldn't pursue those charges. That's lovely. So you've got the perimeter set. The people have readjusted it. Dog's not coming back. You know, it's gotten pretty serious, obviously.

You were able to you still maintain some cover you just stayed where you're at yeah so we stayed where we're at kind of kneeling that way if he comes up to us i guess we'd have the advantage at that point until we asked for some cars to um come with us so it gives us more solid cover so the cars would drive up obviously get out of the car and we kind of take a position under a solid cover with the vehicles there on our end yeah i stayed for probably

about another 20 to 25 minutes it's because obviously it's my dog i don't want to leave them yeah and then command staff made decision to pull me which i understand that's in a shooting that kind of happens they pulled everybody that was involved yeah obviously it's hard to leave your dog oh yeah they didn't really give me much of a choice which i obliged so after i was taken out of it they brought me to the golden police headquarters their department yeah and just

just to kind of talk it out with everyone there so to gather a little more intel of what happened and then just sat us down just had to wait and And what were the resources that were going back to the scene? They put a drone up and stuff?

Yeah, they called out for the whole SWAT team. So they got the SWAT team out there. They got the drone with the thermal. They saw a couple different heat signatures, but they weren't really sure what was what because the foliage was pretty thick too from I guess where the drone was and they didn't want to fly it too low. So the whole SWAT team was activated. They replaced all the patrol in the perimeter. Eventually, they moved in close enough to the dogs and made some advancements

to that area. and then they made the, you know, confirmed that he was deceased beyond telling. Yeah, yeah. And the suspect stayed right where he was. No, he ended up, I guess, going down a little bit further down right by the school student housing units and hid under a car that's parked right at the end of the foliage. So he was underneath a car the whole time. Don't know. He could have moved after the fact I was gone or it was wild because people kept saying they might have heard some things.

But you know how it is at nighttime with the wind blowing over trees, moving leaves, things like that. They're on the ground. But he did move not too far away. It was still within our containment. Yeah. But towards the other end of the. So the containment held him in either way. Yes. The containment held him in. Did he still have the gun with him? Yep. He still had the gun with him. He even kept it on him when he walked out

and surrendered because he got cold. That's what you said. Oh. So, and he still had the firearm on him when he, and didn't tell the officers or anything. They found that on the path down. So they've got the drone up. And I think they could see the dog at some point. Yep. And so they knew that he was out of the picture. Did they bring in another dog to start? And maybe, let me, I guess we can stop here, you know, with a little of this.

Because now, Jim, I know you got called out for this, right? Yeah. Interesting. I had just gotten back from being on vacation out of state. And it was probably about 1.30 or so in the morning when I got called. And it's a blocked caller, which usually means it's one of the guys calling me, which usually at that time of the night, it's a good thing because they're telling me that they apprehended somebody or whatever.

Well, the phone call that I got was from a commander. And that's never good. That's never good. Yeah. So he had told me a little bit of what happened and said that Graffiti was down, that they have a drone flying over the top of them and there's no movement. So obviously my immediate concern was with Zach, Zach and everybody else. And yeah, he's okay. He's at Golden Police headquarters.

So I started making some phone calls, getting a lot of the other canines there, depending on what we could do, even just to be with Zach or, you know, because we want to really go find this guy. So I got to Golden Police headquarters, talked to Zach for a bit. At the time, the guy was still at large. We still didn't find him yet. We knew we had SWAT and everybody on the ground. But the hardest part was to try to not have our canines now go search for this guy.

Yeah. Because all the canine guys were wanting to go. Yeah. And it was tough to tell them, no, tactically, they're going to do it this other way. Yeah. Which, obviously, we had some hard feelings about, but it is what, and it was a smart call. Yeah. You know, to do it that way, just so we didn't have another incident with another dog. Yeah. And this guy already proven that he's going to do the same thing. Yeah, yeah.

Or to get somebody else hurt or something like that. So it ended up, once the guy was in custody, then everybody was kind of more, a little more relaxed. And then we could really focus our attention with Zach and, you know, making sure he was okay and things like that. Because, you know, how these things go, Zach is in a room with some other folks, you know, but I want him to be more comfortable with people that he knows. People he knows, yeah. So we can kind of make sure that he's okay.

And they came in, obviously, and they gave you the news or when did that happen? When he was confirmed deceased. Yeah. Yeah, they, they told me that once they find out, they let me know right away, which they did. They told me right away. Yeah. And that wasn't, you weren't shocked at that? No, I told them because they're like, they tried to explain to me why they couldn't send SWAT guys down there right away, cause they can't get hurt.

Yeah. And I, I told him, I was like, honestly, I know he's deceased. I know he's gone. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, he wasn't making any sounds. He's a tough dog. Yeah. You just, you just, you just know. Yeah. So I was like, I agree with you. Let's not do a suicide mission, trying to get the dog out. No. But obviously do everything we can to make sure this guy doesn't get away. That's my biggest thing. I did not want him to get away.

I mean, the dog did his job. He saved your butt and don't sacrifice your tactics now. So on that part of it, I mean, it sounds like as an agency, you were, I mean, there was a lot of really good decisions, tactical decisions made there where instead of just rushing right into it. So, I mean, I think that, you know, kudos for that because emotions get going and then you see sometimes people make bad decisions and other people fall along with it.

But clearly, you know, this was well thought out. So the SWAT team, he gives up to the SWAT team. They take him into custody. And that's kind of, that's, you know, how long after it started that it was in custody. Was it two and a half hours, three hours? A couple hours. It seemed. Oh, sure. Sure. Oh, yeah. So, yeah, it was a good two hours before we had the custody. Because it's probably 4.30 in the morning at that point or something.

And take like, I'm going to ask you, Jim, take this, you know, there's a lot of emotions with this, But that's one of those veteran trainer handler calls that now looking back at it, even if it wasn't as dramatic as the dog losing his life or something, there are some times when you're picking teams to go down range that as the senior guy and the one who's kind of helping out the younger guys, and I know you know this, and you spend a little time thinking about,

is this the right call for this team? And maybe the team's too invested or maybe they're going to do something on an emotional level that they shouldn't or whatever. And I mean, I know you do that regularly. It had to be in spades on this one. So when you're saying it was the right decision not to let everybody go because it could have gotten, you know, maybe the tactics wouldn't have been as good or maybe, you know, who knows.

But when guys are that emotionally invested in it, it's hard to make sometimes the correct decisions. Yeah, for sure. I mean, obviously we all want to go catch the guy, but it. You still got to take that deep breath. I had a trainer one time that said, never run to your death.

That's a great line. That's a great line. That's a great line. I think that's one of the things that, you know, there's been, I've studied this a lot and more than once dog has been shot and the handlers ran out to take care of the dog because they weren't ready for it. So in your training, neither one of you can answer this. Like when I train people, I always, you know, I'll find a, someday when the handler's kind of relaxed, we'll be talking, you know, you like your dog?

Oh God, I'm so happy with this dog, love him and everything. And then I'll paint the most God awful picture I possibly can. You know, picture him out in the middle of the street with a two, two, three round going into him, flopping around, screaming. What, you know, what's wrong with you? And I tell him, I want you to think about this.

And if that happens, you're not running up there, you know, and start, because I don't think some people, you know, do the crisis rehearsal for these horrible things that can happen so i assume in your training and in your own crisis rehearsal in your mental mind there had to be some time where you'd already thought if this happens i'm going to do this because you responded correctly so zach i mean was that something that was you'd already thought about or did it just

kind of fall in with the training you already had well luckily we did training scenarios with canada and stuff but it's it's different sure obviously absolutely so i didn't really ever think about that deeply i just If you asked me that question beforehand, I would give you the answer every time. Yeah. Like, oh, no, I want to go out there or things like that. Because I thought of it like, obviously, we're not going to, like you said, run into our death.

But then when it happens, I won't lie, there was definitely that feeling of me like, I need to get to my dog. Yeah, absolutely. But that prior training, I mean, it had to start kicking in. That's where we get that muscle memory.

And I know- And it definitely did. There's a lot of people who they have to spend so much time on their training nights just trying to work on their critical skills of release and all that, that they never do hardly any scenario training and put those decisions out there. And I know you guys do a lot of scenario stuff, so that had to have helped. And over the years, it's probably changed a little bit as long as you've been doing this, Jim. Oh, definitely.

It's changed a lot. I mean, a lot more scenario-based training. I know we're all strapped for time and stuff like that on training days, but we do try to throw at least some kind of scenario, whether it's weapons involved or even like the no-bite scenario, those, and try to change them up a little bit. And you can actually get through a lot of those scenarios pretty quick.

So if you're talking about taking up training time where we have to do our maintenance stuff or whatever, it really doesn't take that much time to run people through one throughout the training day. Yeah. It can be done. Yeah. And clearly it was done. And I mean, you were, you were comfortable at least, you know, in the environment is where you were operating and you'd make really, really good decisions. So clearly the training helped there.

So, um, let's kind of move on. And I mean, the, you know, that, that parts of the, the night, you know, now he's in custody and now the really crappy part of the day really begins. Cause now you, you know, at some point I'm sure you had to notify the family and how'd that go? Yeah. that graffiti was definitely a family dog yeah i know not every can is but he was he was so socially.

Amazing with everybody like the community he's the dog of the demos where all the kids can pet afterwards but yeah he gets the street bites just fine it's yeah it's a big game to him like he knew when it was working when it wasn't yeah and so my kids at the time i even had a three-year-old and i want to say my oldest was nine at the time and they play with that dog all the time obviously i'm there supervising yeah but i had full trust in that dog so my family loved

graffiti feet and obviously all their stuffed animals are German shepherds. Yeah. You know, they really took into like, it was their police dog. Yeah. So I knew it was, it was going to be hard for them to, to know that. What I did do was I texted my wife saying, Hey, graffiti was killed. I'm okay. And I was like, and pick up your phone. Cause I tried calling her once. She didn't pick it up. I was like, well, but if she sees this and she'll see it.

And then after that, like 20 minutes later, she called me and I told her the news and she came down to the station to be with me. I just said, don't tell the kids yet. Yeah. Because we'll go tell them in person later on. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So then telling the family was definitely hard. Telling the kids was really hard because it's a big deal for them. Oh, yeah. So that was definitely rough even for me to tell them. In the back of my mind, I'm dreading a lot of things from that day.

And going home to tell the kids was definitely. That's going to be up there, yeah. It was a hard one. And just having, you know, I've had dogs that I had to drive to the vet for their last ride. And I know that's a horrible feeling when you get in your car and your car suddenly seems big and empty. And I can't imagine that day, you know, at least when, when that happens, when you're going to, when you make an appointment with the vet, you're ready, you know, mentally kind of ready for it.

You weren't ready for this. So I can only imagine that day. And then, you know, the next, you know, you had a period of time before you got another dog. So kind of talk about that and what you went through there. Well, even that day was hard because we had a procession actually to the Fort Collins animal hospital where we took her feet because you had to do the autopsy for the canine. Yeah. So even driving there, at least I had Grafitte's body in the back of the kennel. Yeah. For that.

But driving back from it when it was empty. From Fort Collins. Yeah.

Yeah. It was definitely a, just a, didn't feel right, you know? Oh yeah. Yeah. It's a horrible feeling. And then, you know, I imagine that the agency gave you a couple of days off. Yeah. To think about. And then, you know, dogs don't grow on trees or there's a process before you get another dog. So what, what happened then? You get back to work and. When I went back to work, I had, while we're still planning on getting a new dog. Yeah.

Obviously like, you know, that takes time. You have to go out and test them first and have spots available and all that. So it was about four months. And my department was, they were great to me. They let me keep my car. Yeah. They let me keep my canine call sign. Yeah. I just have to, you know, how about patrol functions? But at least they didn't strip me in my car at least or in my uniform.

I still did the whole, it's like, I'm still a canine handler, but just doing more of a patrol function every day and a normal different hours for briefing and then things like that. So it was nice that the department took care of me, but it was definitely a hard feeling driving an empty kennel. And I'm not like every handler has different types of dogs, but Graffiti barked all the time. He barked at everything. It was a very hard for control.

And at some of the times I'm like, oh man, be quiet back there. But then I missed it. I missed it a lot. So it was definitely a hard feeling not having that barking all the time. Yeah. And I'm without a doubt, and I've never asked you this before, but there had to be a couple of times when you're on patrol where that dog would have been perfect in that situation that very minute. You know, and he's not there, I imagine, a call or something. Yeah, my first night back.

Yeah. I remember that call specifically. I even told my team. I was like, this would be great for a dog. We broke out the guy's windows. He wouldn't come out. He was trying to run from us. Yeah. Brammed his car. And unfortunately, I was like, nope, I don't have a dog right now. So I guess we're going to do this the old way with less lethal and try to figure it out. And it was just a weird feeling because it's like right away, I'm like, yeah, but I wish I had a dog. Yeah. Yeah.

And I imagine most cops were supportive too. I mean, it was a. The whole agency was supportive, especially the canning unit itself. Yeah. Just like probably most can I teams we've, we're a pretty tight team. Yeah. A lot of these handlers have been here for a long time. Yeah. And I was, since I've been a deputy and I've always had an interest in canine, I've been coming out to their trainings. So I've known the guys for nine years.

So it was definitely very supportive and that definitely makes it different because even when I go to the canine training every Wednesday still with them with no dog, everybody treats me just like, you know, I'm a handler. I just help out on the suit, but it's still, I was still part of the team. It's not like anything changed except I just didn't have a canine at the time, which is still hard to watch the training go by and not have your dog train. Yeah.

And there's a time there where, you know, I've been through a lot of critical incidents and it seems like, at least in my times I've been in them, there's a window there where, you know, after some of the adrenaline of a week or two, I think it's fairly common to start replaying it.

It and then thinking if only this if if i did if if we if not even if i would have done something if you know if only something different would happen were you having a lot of those kind of replaying the scene or i mean the scene was pretty straightforward so i did i mean i always gave myself a little guilt for having so much tension on this because i knew he wanted to go maybe if i let him go more at faster speed or full speed he would have just

bit the suspect and he would have a time to shoot him but then again like i said i replay it i'm like well i still gotta be be cautious with kids make sure my target's correct i can't just let him go full blown.

Running into an air research yeah um so i don't i i keep saying i wouldn't change anything but it still sucks because i feel like if i did play out different maybe have a different circumstance yeah you know i still wouldn't change anything yeah yeah you can what if things to death and then backlighting them so the suspect can see him coming up the hill perfectly that's another thing where i kind of beat myself up but at the same time i need to see past them of what we're looking at.

So it's, it's just, it's the environment you work in and you're there, but, but what, did you do anything or did you, I don't know, did you talk to some of their handlers or just to clear the, some of that thought out of your head? And it sounds like you went back and walked the scene and stuff. What was the process just for the mental health of that part of it, just to, to kind of clear your head. So you didn't just keep beating yourself up on things.

Like you said, kind of just talking to, talking to that with everybody. Yeah. I mean, a lot of good came from it. So what helped me out is like the whole community was so supportive. I've gotten, because it happened on a school campus. So we have all the college students because apparently they got a notification from saying there's a shooting on the school campus. They're texting their parents like, oh my God, there's a gunman here.

Their parents are calling in. And so after the whole thing was over, they were so supportive.

It's like, oh, thank you for protecting our kids. kids yeah and that was great because I got thousands of like legitimately thousands of cards from around the world yeah and lots from all the students and they got all their like the seniorities and sororities and they're all his signatures and they dropped off all these like food and dog toys to our canine unit and we ended up changing it to basically a fundraiser because we had so much stuff we did a fundraiser for foothills animal shelter

because we had so much food and toys we're like the whole community's been so great and that really helps me out though So it's like, I feel like the community feels for me. Yeah. I wasn't alone.

Yeah. And that was amazing. Yeah. So, I mean, it sounds like a lot of the support system, the agency was treating you really well. Then the community came and rallied behind you. Yep. People from out of the state too, even out of the country were sending us, you know, cards and thanking us and everything. Yeah. And it doesn't seem, you know, even as we sit here and talk about right now, it doesn't seem like there was a place for you to take a quick left turn and avoid all this.

I mean, this guy's out there. We're going to go search for him. And you know we've got the best tool which is the dog and you know clearly you you say some things about slowing him down or whatever but i imagine again and i keep harping back to it that.

Having a good training program and doing scenarios and all that you know you were well prepared and that and that makes you know when when things don't work out the way we want them to makes it a lot easier on you i mean because it was like you followed all your training your dog was His dog was up for the task. He didn't get close and turn around and tuck tail. I mean, he was going towards the suspect, doing everything right. I mean, he saved your ass on it.

So, I mean, it's a tragedy, but it's one of those things that we do what we do, and sometimes it works out not the way we want. So, you've mentioned a couple times about the community support and all the gym. You kind of talked about that, and you've been around this agency for a very long time. I'm probably not surprised, especially dealing with a dog. You know, everybody loves their police dogs. But were you surprised with the amount of support and the amount of financial support that came in?

Yeah, we had no idea that this was all going to, like, blow up the way it did. The first part, because everybody wants to have a memorial service, and even that, the only thing you can tell other people is to let other people in your department do a lot of that work for you because there's no way that you can have Zach do it or we're inundated with a lot of other things going on there. So have other people that are more versed in those areas do stuff for you.

We have a great PIO people here at our department. They took care of a lot of that kind of stuff and arranging things. But then once it hit the public, just like Zach said, the outpouring. People did. Just let alone the cards, people wanted to do different fundraisers for us. We had one great, great local company that did a fundraiser and we did auctions and everything and they raised enough money.

We have a bronze statue actually of Graffiti that we're putting on memorial here at the headquarters. Nice, yeah. And we got enough money to buy let alone a replacement dog for Zach, but also another dog complete with storm vests and everything. Yeah. So it really amazed us. And even today, we're still having things coming in for graffiti. It's a horrible tragedy what happened. But to see the community support canines and everything, it's truly amazing.

Especially, yeah. If you lose hope in what people think of us, this definitely changed. Yeah, especially now because you and I started around the same time in law enforcement. And this is the worst it's ever, ever been. By and long. But, but long, uh, Rodney King, those years were kind of shaky, but nothing like the way that we're treated now. So, I mean, it is good to hear that, you know, there's the sports out there.

It's just, they're not as vocal until, you know, something taps into them there. And being a canine, I mean, that really touched a lot of people. Yeah. Um, even people that may not, you know, care for what we do. It seems like just because it was a dog. Yeah. That man, it was, it was just.

Incredible, the amount of care that we had for that. And as an agency, neither one of you can talk about this. As an agency, you guys, and I know a lot of dog handlers hate doing demos and they hate doing all that stuff. You guys do a lot of that kind of stuff. And the support would have been there if nobody had ever seen you at a demo. But having that prior connection with the community certainly probably paid off at this point. Yeah. Actually, just before this, we did a demo.

So we're very active in the community. I really think it helps out with your program to let everybody know that these dogs are just not out there going, you know, crazy on the street and things like that. That they're actually, we do a lot of other things besides just, you know, apprehending people or something like that. And I think it really helps the community to see that and to be around our dogs and understand and talk to us. Yeah. And see that they're social animals.

Yeah. And your command likes that. Oh, definitely. And I can't say enough about our command, our executive staff during this whole thing. And still, I mean, nothing but support from them, from Zach and for our whole unit. I mean, they sent us to D.C. for police week, the whole unit. We had 20 some people that went. That's awesome. If that doesn't show you what support you have, let me see. Yeah.

That's a big financial commitment. But would you agree that not just this incident, but the fact that you've always been, I've known you a long time, it's always been, yep, whatever you guys need, we'll do. You jump in. You're not an elite canine unit. You're still helping out with anything the agency needs, including the demos. They're not our favorite thing, but you guys always have had that as an agency. Every bit I've ever dealt with you guys, it's always been that.

We're part of an agency. We're not this elite group, and that has to help. Yeah. And that tone was set before you ever got here, and you've carried it on. And it's just some agencies don't have that same tone. But, I mean, if people are listening to this and you feel like you're an entitled handler with two or three years on, maybe check yourself a little bit.

Because, you know, if you're in this situation or if they're just looking at cutting canine units or doing something, all of the little things you guys do add up to, like, how many dogs do you guys have right now? Yeah, we have six on patrol and one in the courthouse. Yeah. We're all friends. I mean, we are tight. We go out on weekends together. We do a lot of things together. And I think that helps. If we have a problem within the unit, we take care of it.

We all train days. If someone's got a better idea to how to work a dog or something, like we're all in this together. We all work together. Perfect. And it shows, you know, it's like that kind of unit that's kind of fun to be around.

And if somebody is listening to this and you're not in that kind of unit, you know, to start taking steps to to bend those fences you know so one of the things that you mentioned i'll let maybe that you would address it zach jim had mentioned about vests and we'll just talk about dog vest you know and i know that question comes up do you have a vest on that night or the dog or no you had a tracking harness which is what we're kind of training a lightweight,

non-cabervar tracking harness just so it's easy to pick up a dog go long distances things like that, since then we've invested in because of the donations we got canine storm vest yeah and And that's like a tight fitted one that they can actually wear on the full shift and our dogs training them. And then they've actually been doing very good and very versatile. So I'm actually a big fan of those vests right now. Does it cover the whole body? Would it always save a canine's life?

You know, in 50% of situations, probably not or more. I don't know the statistics, but there's obviously if you're getting shot straight on, it's not probably going to help out the face or the neck or the heart, but it's still a nice little piece of mine saying that you tried or something else we can do to protect these dogs. But yes, they'll keep them, you know, have the same agility in the patrol to get their job done.

I mean, I'm not a huge fan of them. I think where dogs are vulnerable, they're not protected when they're vulnerable because most dogs are shot there. But like you said, and I just know that question probably was brought up and I guess that would be part of your donations. You know, one more good thing came of it that you're better equipped that way now. Yeah. I mean, you can take that both ways with dogs wearing the vest.

They're actually fairly lightweight. way, obviously you still got to watch the heat stuff because, I mean, heat stroke with dogs, especially these dogs. Yeah. I mean, it can happen so fast. Yeah. But now it feels odd if I don't put my vest on my dog. Yeah. I mean, obviously there are times like if it's, you know, 90 degrees and you're tracking whatever on actual call. Yeah. Sometimes you may not be able to do that. Just, I mean, because you will lose these dogs on, on overheat. Yeah. Yeah.

But they're in them almost all the time. And I don't know if it gives me more peace of mind too, to know that they're actually even a little safer and. But it does help. Yeah. It makes me feel more comfortable to sell my dog and some different things. And, you know, even jump through windows and stuff like that with some broken glass, it will help them. Protection. Yeah. Or fences and things like that. Yeah. So it will help them with some of that kind of thing.

Yeah. You guys end up in a lot of areas with woods and sharp sticks. People don't know, our county is very diverse. We have everything from metro areas, because we border Denver, all the way to the mountains. Yeah. We're about an hour away from our headquarters here. Yeah. Yeah. So it's very diverse. Yeah.

And I guess to kind of wrap it all up, there's been some changes in the Colorado Statute. And I know from, you know, years ago when the Colorado Police Canine Association first got some statues about killing a police dog, it was a fairly watered-down statue. It wasn't what we wanted. You know, I think that was probably 20 years ago that they were working on it. And then through this, it got revisited. And I think probably the publicity

from this incident definitely propelled it. So talk about that, about how that happened. Colorado's always had very lax laws with police animals, particularly police canines. Yeah. At the time when this happened, they started looking at charges on this guy. And the highest thing we could do was aggravated cruelty to animals. At the time, it was a class six felony. So pretty low. A year and a half. No different than killing any other dog.

There's no special protection for the dog. It was a pet or whatever. Same thing. So nothing for a police dog. We were even looking at when we were starting to talk to the district attorney's office for filing charges, the higher charge actually was criminal mischief. Because of the value of the dog. Because of the value of the dog. Yeah. Account training and all that kind of stuff.

And no one really wanted to go that route just because we're trying to get these other laws enacted and they didn't know if it would distract from doing that. Which they were probably right. You know, we were on whatever kind of time we could get this guy, you know. Yeah, yeah. But anyway, so we actually went down to the Capitol twice on a couple bills. And the first one was still aggravated cruelty to animals, but it would boost it up to a class four felony, which was good.

So we got a little bit more and then we went back again and we actually have a designator now for police animals. So whether it's a horse or whatever, but obviously it's most likely to be a canine. So it still stated a class four felony. So that didn't change.

But also it is a designator for police animals, which helps us a lot to see that. And then obviously we wanna go back and try to even get a separate designator, but that's still in the works maybe in a couple of years. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. More than you want to, yeah. Our state and organization, I mean, we've been testifying a lot. Yeah. Yeah. But we're on a good pace to get all that done. We did have another canine that got killed down south about two years ago, Jinx?

Yeah, yeah, that's okay. And then he was very instrumental, Coming up here and getting a lot of those laws changed with us, too. So between what happened to Graffiti and Jinx, and we had some great bill sponsors for this, we got it through. Good, good. So, I mean, again, some good comes out of everything. It's crazy to think that that's that big of a battle. But I know from working on it the first time, and then I know it's been a battle forever.

It's just not a state that's friendly to protecting cops to begin with. So anything else you want to, Zach, you want to just wrap up with just any final thoughts or now that you're kind of, I know the suspect he was sentenced for, for his total sentence ended up in what? What? He got sentenced. The maximum he could get, the judge was pretty good about that.

He got 12 years, but that is based off the identity theft because he had a passport that wasn't his, that he was using to, I guess, stay at a hotel. Yeah. And he used that, luckily, because that gave, it was his multiple offenses, so more than three. Yeah. So that upped his to an F4 felony for that or even maybe more.

So that charge by itself with all the other charges we had, if you want to throw in the menacing in there, if you want to throw in vehicular looting and animal cruelty, it's all concurrent, not consecutive. So really all that matters is the top charge, I was told. And luckily he had that passport on him for identity theft because we were probably looking at about a year and a half otherwise.

So instead of a year and a half, at least it's good knowing that he got the max of 12 for the full charge. Yeah, it's crazy because I think, you know, as you mentioned, it should have been a first-degree assault to a police officer or attempted murder of a police officer. I don't care what he says he's shooting at. He made a lot of decisions, but. it. Yeah. I'm sure the DAs did what they did for valid reasons.

I'm not, I'm not a lawyer. Maybe they just didn't think the chances of prosecution or whatever. I know they're on our side, but it's definitely, it's definitely hard knowing that. But in the end, I always think of it like maybe it's a good thing that he didn't get shot and killed because we were able to change laws because of it. And I think the community cared a lot more because the suspect lived where, you know, at first I'm like, Oh, I wish that things changed.

I wish it was different. But now it's like, Like I'm glad he lived and didn't get shot from us because we can make better changes for the future because of it. So in the end it worked out. Yeah. I mean, that's a good, good sound. There's a face to who did this evil act. So yeah. And at least got more than one and a half years. Cause that would be hard. So I'm glad about that too. I wish it was more, but I'm happy with, I guess how everything worked out in

the end for being such a bad situation. Yeah. And then after a few months, you got your new dog, you're up and running. Yep, Canine Ragnar. Got him at the end of May of last year, so we've been together for just over a year. It's tough. I mean, switching dogs is tough, but I mean, you're getting into it, and I just saw him a lot last week. Yeah, and they're completely different dogs. And everybody warned me, you can never compare your new dog compared to your

last dog because they're different. And that's exactly right. It's like having two children. Yeah. You know, if you lost one child, you're never going to replace it. You just have another child who's going to have completely different manners and behavior. Yeah. And that's what it is. But I love them. So I'm happy. I'm fortunate to get another canine.

Yeah. I never had a thought in my mind of not getting another dog. So I'm just glad my department was willing to do that. And it happened pretty soon. To me, four months felt like a long time. Oh, yeah. Yeah. But overall, knowing the circumstances, that was pretty quick. So I'm pretty happy about that. Yeah. That's good. Anything else you want to wrap up with, Jim? I'd just like to say everybody be safe out there. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, keep working the dogs and have fun with it.

There's a reason why I've done it for 25 years. So just have fun with it. Yeah, have fun, but keep your head in the game too, which this is a good example of that. I'll say one last time, you know, the prior training and the scenario training and the control work and everything, and, you know, having a familiar area with your cover officers.

I mean, there was a lot of ways that this could have ended up with a dead cop that night, a whole lot of ways. And, you know, definitely the, the, the, you know, it was a tragedy with the dog, but the cops went home safe and, and that that's, that's due to, you know, your program here. So thanks guys. I appreciate taking the time. I know it's your training day.

So I'm going to wrap this up and let you guys get out there and do stuff that's more important than a podcast, but hopefully people get a lot out of this. So I appreciate you guys taking the time today. Thanks guys. Thank you, Jeff. Thank you. All right. That's going to wrap it up. I appreciate both Zach and Jim jumping on the show with me today. Again, you know, I think debriefs are valuable. Some people don't really want to sit there and expose good, bad, and ugly to the world.

If you've been involved in one and you want to talk about it, please reach out to me. It'd be a good show. I'm sure all these things we can learn from. Luckily, this one worked out where the cops were okay. And really a lot of stress to the show. the prior training really paid off and they were pretty well prepared for pretty lousy situations. So it shows, you know, training and doing those types of, you know, decision-making scenarios really pay off. So I thank them for coming on.

I'll wrap up the show as always, you know, thanking a couple more sponsors. And again, everybody that listens to this knows who Ray Allen K9 is, but they're sponsoring the show. They're sponsoring the Colorado K9 Conference. They're the lead sponsor for the Colorado K9 Conference. Which will be here in Colorado, obviously, Colorado Canine Conference, the end of July. Check out that conference. I'm the one hosting that. I've got a lot of great instructors coming.

It'll be end of July. Go to coloradocanineconference.com for the information on that. And again, Ray Allen's our sponsor there. And Ray Allen, they're known for all their quality. I like a lot of their different stuff. Just this week, I was teaching an e-collar class, and we started looking at their elusive dog collars. So basically it's a tactical collar that will hold one of, you know, your, your brand of electronic collar inside the collar and hold it, you know, in a specific spot.

It's a real, real nice collar. It combines two collars into one basically. So you don't have to have your, your e-collar on a separate one and then your tactical collar. So that's one of the cool products they have. It's called the Elusive Collar. So check out that out at rayallen.com. And then I'm going to wrap up. Thank you, Bob Eden, as always. Bob Eden from catsplatinum.com, canine activity tracking software. Everybody has to do record keeping. It's obviously very important.

And if you're going to spend a little bit of time doing it, which we all have to spend a certain amount of time doing it, you know, make sure it's worthwhile where you can actually go back and extract the records you want and make it worthwhile and do professional presentations, either to your command or to courts or whatever.

And I think Cats does that better than anyone. one so check out catsplatinum.com look at their options for record keeping and all the different ways you can customize it and i think you'll agree that it's a really excellent option for you to check out so catsplatinum.com and with that i'll wrap it up have a safe week and we'll be back. Music.