SPRING 2016 LONG BEACH K-9 OFFICERS ASSOCIATION

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1 SPRING 2016 LONG BEACH K-9 OFFICERS ASSOCIATION It s that time of year again for our annual Long Beach Police K-9 Car Show! This year the car show will take place on Saturday May 14th. After unfortunate events last year that prevented us from having the show, this year is already shaping up to be bigger than ever. We are expecting a record number of cars and attendees. As usual this is a free event to spectators, including free parking. Food will be available for purchase with 100% of the food profits going to the purchase of new Police K-9 s. Make sure you come early to grab some coffee and donuts. Then enjoy a walk through the park to check out this year s vendors and car line up. All while enjoying the music from Johnny Rockets & V-twins. Lunch will be BBQ d by the Sultans car club with plenty of hamburgers and hot dogs to go around. Then you will not want to miss the Police K-9 demonstration. You will see many training exercises performed by the K-9s. Exercises ranging from drug/bomb detection to tactical take downs. This year is extra special as we have three new police K-9 handlers and new dogs. This is an event you will not want to miss and we hope to see you there! Inside this issue: President s Message 2 Sergeant s Report 2 Crime Crushers 3 Crime Crushers 5 Membership 6 Merchandise 7

2 Page 2 K9 COLLAR ASSOCIATION OFFICERS Steve Ditmars President Shirley Vaughan Vice President Nancy Cotton Financial/Recording Secretary Janie Bordelon Correspondence Secretary Toni Ellis Treasurer BOARD OF DIRECTORS Peter Blair Vince Bunting Laura Mathews Michael McGinnis John Vogler Scott Carrier Vinny Bunting Lynn Englehart Mary Lou Hall Greetings! It seems odd to think that I have been the Association President for a year now. As you may recall, Dan Kachel left us to move out of state last year and I was asked to step in as President. This is something I was happy to do, but I also will be moving out of state and did not expect to be able to serve for very long. As it turns out, my wife, Barbi, and I are going to build rather than buy our new home, so we will be here for longer than expected, at least through the end of this year. This is a busy time of the year for the K9 Association. Our annual K9 Car show that we put on with the Sultan s Car Club is on Saturday, May 14. We missed last year due to a scheduling conflict, but we are back on track this year. We will be doing a K9 demonstration this year, but we are still working out the details. The Academy, where we have put on our demonstration for a number of years, has installed privacy screens in the fencing, so the old method will not work. Rest assured we will be doing something, possibly at the range. Listen for an announcement at the car show and we will make sure you get there on time. President s Report Our K9 unit has become smaller over the past few years. We have lost officers due to retirement, promotion and transfer. Overall staffing for the department has been reduced due to budget cuts and the K9 unit was not allowed to fill their vacant positions. Now, with the support of Chief Robert Luna, we are adding three new officers. The officers recently traveled to Indiana for selection of their new partners and, as I write this, they are involved in a training program. The costs for the new dogs and the expenses related to their selection were all paid by the K9 Officers Association. This is a great time for me to thank you, our loyal membership, for your continued support. The money we raise is instrumental in helping create the finest K9 unit in America. I look forward to seeing you at the K9 show. If you see me, please say hi. Steve Ditmars Sergeant s Report By Acting Sergeant, Officer Bill Kift HONORARY BOARD Thomas W. Beighlie, DVM The Long Beach K-9 Officers Association is a non-profit corporation. Federal Tax ID# The K-9 Collar is published quarterly by the Long Beach K-9 Officers Association. Subscriptions are a benefit of membership in the Association. Correspondence and change of address should be mailed to: K-9 Collar P.O. Box Long Beach, CA I m writing this article as the Acting Sergeant of the Police Service Dog Unit (PSDU). Sergeant Marcus Hodge has been reassigned and we wish him luck with his new job. The K-9 Unit continues to see lots of changes, which is very exciting. The end of 2015 we saw two more long standing handlers move on. Officer Ernie Wolosewicz was promoted to Sergeant in December and is now working graveyard in North Division. We wish Ernie good luck and we know he ll be a great supervisor. We also saw the retirement of K-1 Greg Manis. We d like to congratulate Greg on an outstanding law enforcement career and wish him luck in his retirement. We are also very excited to announce, for the first time in 12 years, the addition of three new handlers. The new guys will be starting their handler school with their new dogs as this newsletter goes to print. Our new head training Officer, Mike Parcells will be putting the handlers and their dogs through the paces. Officer Jerry Carter and his explosive K-9 Jax just finished another successful deployment to the 2016 Long Beach Grand Prix. Jerry and K-9 Jax put in very long hours and with the assistance of our neighboring agencies kept all the attendees safe. We are happy to the announce the return of the Sultan s Car Show benefitting the Long Beach Police K-9 Officers Association on May 14th. We are looking forward to another successful event. Finally, we d like to thank all the members of the Long Beach Police K9 Officers Association for their continued support.

3 SPRING 2016 Long Beach Police Service Dog Unit Officer Bill Kift Kai Officer Mike Parcells Credo Officer Mike Wooldridge Basco Officer Vic Ortiz Trex Officer Jerry Carter Jax & Thor Corporal Manis Retires Page 3 My decision to try out for K9 back in 1991 was one of the best decisions of my life, it has been a lot of fun, challenging, exciting, rewarding and very loud in my car. The 24 years of K9 I worked 5 dogs on all 3 shifts, first was a German Shepherd named Dex, second was a German Shepherd named Axel, third was a Malinois named Rudy fourth was a Malinois named Kotha and I retired with a Malinois named Jhonny. December 28 th, 2015 was my last day working K9 with Jhonny. Turned out to be a very busy night, I had 3 searches with an in-custody, exactly how I hoped my last night with Jhonny would be. My next night I worked with my son Chad in a patrol car, my thought was to end my career the same way I started, pushing a black and white working a beat. Had a fun busy night working with my son. Wednesday, December 30 th 2015 was officially my last day consisting of turning in all my K9 gear at the academy, heading downtown to turn in all my other uniforms and gear before driving my K9 car to the Heliport and getting a ride home from there. That drive home from the heliport to my house was quick but a ton of thoughts were racing through my head. I know I made the right decision to retire, I think it was the reality of what I had done over the last 29 years the last 24 working K9, that this was all I knew. Yes, I will continue to stay busy selling real estate, but the guys and girls that I ve worked around I will truly miss. I would like to thank my wife Laurie and my 2 sons Chad and Brett for without their help and support it would not have been possible. The support of the K9 association has been amazing, these are truly dog lovers and support the K9 officers to the best of their ability with little in return, again I thank all of you. The handlers are all my friends, I love each and everyone of you, and thank you for all your help, criticism, support, guidance and true friendships. Although I have moved on to the next phase of my life, I will never forget what an impact all of whom I have crossed paths with and again thank you. Officer Ed Saldana Officer Ed Moscoso Officer Jason Woods Det. Luis Rodriguez Abby Det. Chris Thue Ozzy Crime Crusher By Officer Mike Parcells My partner and I were working our afternoon patrol shift when I heard an officer come on the radio and ask for the assistance of a narcotics K-9. Credo and I headed up to North Long Beach where the officers had a vehicle stopped for a traffic violation. Upon arrival, I contacted the officers on scene to see what they needed. The officer said he saw the vehicle commit a traffic violation and he was going to do a traffic stop on the vehicle. The officer stated as he tried to initiate a traffic stop on the vehicle, the driver failed to pull over and a short chase in ensued. Moments later the vehicle came to a stop and they detained the driver, but they said he is really nervous, and they think that he may have something inside the vehicle. I went back to my police vehicle and got Credo out. I put his leash on and walked him to the front on the suspect's vehicle. The wind was blowing in his face as I gave Credo his search command. Credo was off like a bullet. He quickly detailed the front of the vehicle and quickly worked his way to the passenger side of the vehicle. As Credo came to the passenger side of the trunk, he put his nose on the seam and immediately gave his alert that there was narcotics odor coming from the trunk of the vehicle. I praised Credo and we continued to work the vehicle. After searching the driver side of the vehicle, Credo drove into the passenger compartment of the vehicle. He jumped into the back seat, and again alerted to the odor of narcotics. I put Credo away and went to contact the driver. I asked the driver if there were any narcotics inside the vehicle. The driver stated, "I don't think so, but this is not my car." I asked the driver who the vehicle belonged to. The driver stated he did not know who the vehicle belonged to. He stated that a friend gave him money to drop the car off at a location. I went over to the trunk of the vehicle and opened it with the key. Inside the trunk there were 20 large packages wrapped in duct tape, with different amounts written on each package 30K, 50K, and 48K. The total amount was $850,000. We also recovered two kilos of Meth. It was a great job by all the Officers involved.

4 Page 4 K9 COLLAR Recently our newest handlers traveled to Von Liche Kennels in Indiana. They selected three strong dogs to put through our seven week handler course. You will hear more about the new dogs in the next issue of The Collar. Below are short introductions of the handlers. I would like to take this opportunity to introduce myself to the K9 Officers Association. My name is Ed Moscoso. I have been a Police Officer in Long Beach since In my time with the police department I have worked patrol in the downtown area then assigned to the Motor Detail in While assigned to the Motor Detail, I had the honor of being elected the Motor Patrol Association President. In my time as President, I learned a lot about our community and home much it supports its police department. I began to volunteer my time with the K9 detail in early I spent many hours in the bite suit, hiding in dark room waiting for a dog to find me. I am very excited to be a part of this detail and I look forward to many rewarding years with Bo protecting the streets of Long Beach. My name is Officer Ed Saldana. I am a sixteen year veteran of the Long Beach Police Department. I spent all of my time in patrol and have patrolled the North and East Divisions. I have been decoying/ volunteering for the K-9 detail since My name is Officer Jason Woods. I have been a police officer for the City of Long Beach for over nine years. I have spent the majority of my career in patrol, with special detail assignments in auto theft and a prohibited possessor firearms detective under the gang investigations detail. I have spent the last three years on patrol as an FTO (Field Training Officer) for new academy graduates. I took the position as an FTO as a great honor. I was voted into the position by a committee of my peers and I was entrusted in working with brand new officers and teaching them all of the things needed to be a successful police officer in our city. Since I started the academy I was always intrigued by the K9 detail. I remember specifically during the academy, a short session taught by a K-9 handler about their operations. The handler asked for a volunteer to get into the bite suit and take a bite from his dog. I was disappointed that I was not chosen. Fast forward a few years into my career... after finishing a search with current K-9 officer Victor Ortiz, I asked him about becoming a K-9 handler. Officer Ortiz advised me it took a lot of hard work and to start volunteering on their training days. Since then, I have volunteered for over six years with the K-9 detail before finally being selected as a handler.once given the news that I was selected as handler, I was elated and I immediately thought of the prestigious reputation and traditions of the detail that I need to uphold.

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6 Page 6 K9 COLLAR Check us out on Facebook and visit our web site for more information regarding our activities. See our souvenir items with LBK9OA logos available for sale. You can also donate via our web site through PayPal using your credit card. Scan with your smart phone to visit us on the web! Name: MEMBERSHIP APPLICATION/RENEWAL FORM Address: MEMBERSHIP APPLICATION/RENEWAL FORM City: State: Zip: Ph:( ) - Date: Individual $35.00/yr Corporate $100.00/yr Please accept my application for membership in the Long Beach K-9 Officers Association. Appropriate payment for membership has been enclosed. This is a RENEWAL application, please expedite. Appropriate payment enclosed. This is a DONATION, Please put to good use for the K-9 Program! Donation amount: $ Method of payment: (circle one) Check Enclosed MasterCard Visa Card Credit Card Account # / / / Card Expiration Date / Signature: (For credit card only) Mail Application to: Long Beach K-9 Officers Association P.O. Box Long Beach, CA

7 SPRING 2016 Page 7 Long Beach K-9 Officers Association Merchandise Adult T-Shirt Colors: Black, Red or Gray Sizes Medium, Large, X-Large $17.00 ea XX-Large $20.00 ea Shirts w/ pocket - Sizes: Large, X-Large $18.00 ea Glow in the Dark KEY CHAIN KID S T-SHIRT $1.00 ea $8.00 ea White or Light Blue Sizes 3T, X-Small, Small, Medium COMMUTER MUG $7.00 ea Mug is blue w/gold lettering. Plastic, insulated. Shepherd Bloodhound HATS $12.00 ea Adjustable One size fits most Shepherd Standard Ball cap - White/Royal, Black, Khaki/Navy Summer Mesh Cap - Black, Charcoal/Black, Khaki/Navy LICENSE PLATE FRAME $3.00 ea or 2 for $5.00 CHALLENGE COINS $10.00 NEW All proceeds go to support the Long Beach K-9 Officers Association, a non-profit group. To provide funds to replace dogs killed in the line of duty or retired due to illness or advanced age. To provide continued medical care for retired dogs. (Federal Tax ID # )

8 LB K9 Officers Association P.O. Box Long Beach, CA NON-PROFIT ORG. U.S. POSTAGE PAID LONG BEACH, CA PERMIT 423 ADDRESS SERVICE REQUESTED Saturday May 14th, :00 am - 3:00 pm LB Police Officers Association Park Behind Wal Mart & Lowe s at Town Center) Come have lunch, see some great cars, and meet the K-9 teams!