NEWS

GSP K-9 car didn't have warning device

Lyn Riddle
lnriddle@greenvillenews.com

The Greenville Spartanburg Airport Police patrol car that K-9 Emma died in earlier this week was not equipped with a commonly used device that would have alerted the handler to a malfunction in the air conditioner.

Several manufacturers make such devices, which range in price from $500 to $1,000, and they come with varying capabilities, said Doug Wannemacher, who trains K-9s for the Greenville County Sheriff's Office.

Some devices will roll the windows down when a malfunction occurs. Beep the horn. Send a message to the handler. Vibrate a device attached to a belt.

All K-9 cars owned by the Greenville County Sheriff's Office and Greenville Police Department have been outfitted with the devices, representatives of the departments said.

Rosylin Weston, spokeswoman for the airport, said she did not know why the car was not equipped with the device and would check with the police chief to see if the department will install the device when it gets its next bomb-sniffing dog.

Emma, a 7-year-old black lab, died Monday in a 2011 Ford Crown Victoria that had been equipped to transport a K-9. Typically that includes a caged rear seat with a flat rubber mat.

Emma's handler, Cpl. Chris Richau, left her in the vehicle with the air conditioning running to investigate a non-bomb-related incident inside the terminal, Weston said.

Richau's cruiser was parked outside the airport police department office, which is on the runway side of the airport. The temperature was in the mid-70s. When he returned 90 minutes later, the dog was dead.

Leaving an animal in a vehicle is standard procedure for many departments, including the Sheriff's Office and Police Department. Greenville Police Lt. Jason Rampey said all six Tahoes used to transport K9s are equipped with a system called K9 Cold Guard, which monitors the interior temperature of the vehicle.

The control is set to either 87 or 92 degrees. When the temperature gets close to either the horn will beep intermittently. Once it reaches the temperature the horn sounds continuously and the rear windows roll down. A mesh screen keeps the dog contained. A fan pulls the hot air from the vehicle.

The unit and installation cost about $1,500, Rampey said.

The locked Tahoes remain running when the officer exits. A security device prevents someone from putting the vehicle in gear.

Weston described Richau as devastated. He has been a K-9 handler for 14 years, the only handler the airport police has had. Richau joined the force almost 15 years ago, Weston said.

Emma was called on whenever there was a suspicious package left somewhere on airport property, Weston said. Emma had been a military dog and was donated to the airport about two and a half years ago.

The airport police had two other black labs before Emma, Tide and Amos, who were from the same litter. The dogs retired before Emma was added to the force.

Wannemacher said the devices on county squad cars are tested monthly by technicians and daily by the handler to ensure they are working. Some of the devices will turn on a fan if the air conditioner stops.

"Everybody has problems with air conditioning," he said. "This is a horrible accident."

He said he has worked with Richau and Emma a few times.

"It was kind of a shock when I heard about it," he said.

Wannemacher said the next generation of dog monitors – called colloquially hot dog alarms – will be a chip implanted in the dog that reads its core temperature. If the temperature reaches a certain point, the handler is alerted by cell phone. Right now, the service costs about $1,000 a year, out of the price range of many agencies, Wannemacher said.

But as the technology evolves over the next five years, he expects the price to come down and the chips to be commonplace.

While the airport police did not pay for Emma, K-9s cost between $6,000 and $7,500 and most law enforcement agencies use donations from the public or money seized through drug convictions to buy them.

The city of Greenville lost one of its K-9s, a drug sniffing dog, earlier this year when he jumped out of the back of his handler's pickup truck. He had managed to open his cage.

Wannemacher said the county's bomb-sniffing dog, Rooster, will be available to the airport as needed. Spartanburg County has a bomb sniffing dog as well, he said.

Editorial: Better protect our K-9 officers