GILROY
– One of this city’s two police dogs is getting a promotion.
GILROY – One of this city’s two police dogs is getting a promotion.
It’s a good thing dogs can’t sue for age discrimination, because the older of the two, Kimbo, will probably be passed over for drug-detection training due to his age.
Wal-Mart recently donated $5,600 to the Gilroy Police Department for training its two K-9 dogs to search for drugs. The cost is $2,800 per dog.
The German shepherds, Cento and Kimbo, currently don’t know how to sniff for controlled substances. Police do use them for finding people – usually crime suspects.
Officer Ryan Hollar handles the 4-year-old Cento, and officer Nestor Quiñonez handles Kimbo.
Kimbo, however, is nearing the end of its professional career, so police will probably save the money to train the dog’s replacement.
“I would doubt that we would use this money right now for Nestor’s dog, since it only has a year or so left in its service life,” Assistant Police Chief Lanny Brown said Tuesday.
When Kimbo is retired, police will probably get a new dog and use the donated money to train that animal to sniff for drugs.
“We’ll use it for the purpose it was donated for,” Brown said.
For a few years in the mid-’90s, the GPD had a dog specifically trained to sniff for drugs. Sgt. Steve Becerra handled that animal, but both the dog and handler have since left the GPD.
Cento and Kimbo already are trained to protect their handlers and sniff for people. They are not fully trained search-and-rescue dogs, Brown said, but they come in handy when police have to check a building for hidden burglars or follow a fleeing suspect.
“For example, if an officer were to pursue a vehicle, the driver were to crash or bail out and run up a creek or into the hills, … we would pick up the scent in the car and then track that scent,” Brown said.
Gilroy police have had a dog program for about 15 years, Brown said.
City Councilman Craig Gartman arranged the dog-training deal between the city and Wal-Mart. He said he got the idea while riding along with one of the city’s K-9 units and sitting in on a police dog training session.
“In talking to the officers that we have, they said it would be nice if we had drug training for our dogs,” Gartman said.
Wal-Mart, in a recent bid to replace its current store with a triple-sized Supercenter, promoted itself as a company that donates tens of thousands of dollars to Gilroy charities each year. Gartman saw this as an opportunity.
“In talking to some folks from Wal-Mart, I brought this up, and they said, ‘That’s exactly the kind of thing we want to be doing,’ ” the councilman said. “I just got the check the other day.”
According to Wal-Mart spokeswoman Amy Hill, “We have supported the Gilroy Police Department in other ways throughout the years, contributing to the DARE program and some local neighborhood watch programs.”
Peter Crowley covers public safety for The Dispatch. You can reach him at pc******@************ch.com or (408) 842-6400 x285.
