The Boys

I received an e-mail the other day from a good buddy of mine, Pat, in the e-mail was lots of puppies doing what puppies do best make one smile, well what it did for me was one, made me smile which incidentally we all need to do every once in a while, and two it also gave me an idea for this blog. Puppies are a subject I know quite a bit about seeings how I worked with them for 29.5 years of my 35 years in the police department.I would Like to introduce them to you. First we have Fritz, his badge number was 253,he weighed approx.95.lbs.

Fritz and I became partners in July 1974, after fourteen weeks of intense patrol training we were assigned to the subway unit. Needless to say we were pretty active in those deep caverns of cement and steel. My most memorable moment with Fritz and what really made me a believer in K-9 effectiveness, it was while on patrol at one of the stations, I walk into a robbery in progress by point of knife, the bad guys tried to flee, I latched onto one of them and my partner Fritz grabbed one in the leg causing him to go down and then chased another up a set of steps and grabbed another, what happened next was unbelievable, the last two bad guys seeing Fritz gnawing on their accomplice friend, froze, it was a great arrest, all five were arrested, tried, and sentenced. I worked Fritz up till December of 1981, he died of old age at the age of 15, 5 years later.

My next partner was Lupo, his badge number was 367, he weighed in at approx.87 lbs. Lupo and I became partner in January 1982, we trained in patrol for fourteen weeks and again were reassigned to the subways, after about six years I decided it was about time to expand my horizons and crossed trained Lupo into Narcotics detection, we trained for another 14 weeks in the art of finding the drugs, which he did very well. His most memorable moment was we were called to the Philadelphia Airport, a call came into narcotics Hqs. from Dallas claiming a large shipment of marijuana was entering Phila. but the flight was unknown. Lupo checked numerous flights from Texas and after several hrs. indicated on 6 enormous suite cases. The results were $1,000,000 in weed and cash. The owners of the bags were snatched up as they picked up the cases in the baggage area. Lupo and I worked till January, 1993 when he developed throat cancer and had to be euthanized.

Not long after Lupo, in February of 1993 I was back in the K-9 academy training my third partner his name is Shultz Badge# 493, he also weighed in at about 90 lbs. After our patrol training I was asked if I wanted to try something different and cross train Shultz into Ordinance detection, this pretty much would land me (get the pun) at the Airport Unit and never passing up an opportunity to face new challenges I accepted. Schults developed physical and appeared mental problems not long after our being assigned to the airport,I sort of think working around all that noise on the field messed with his head a bit,he worked great when we went back to the academy for annual training but had no interest when on the job. Shultz also had health problems and met his demise 1996.He also had throat cancer.

Last but not least we have my boy Rex badge# 515. He weighed in at 98 lbs. Rex and I started training in February 1996, we immediately cross trained into Explosive detection. We returned to the airport where it was like a home away from home. Some of our responsibilities were sweeping the Presidential Motorcades, checking aircraft with bomb threats, sweeping cargo prior to loading on the aircraft's and checking suspicious devices found, also luggage unattended.Rex was a master at detection, he won numerous awards from regional competitions, I swear he could find a bullet in a ten story building.Well now you met my boys, I know this blog is quite long but my career was long and once I start talking about it I just can't stop. Oh by the way, Schults is top left, Rex is top right, Fritz is lower left and Lupo is lower right.....