Pubdate: Wed, 07 Nov 2012 Source: Standard, The (St. Catharines, CN ON) Copyright: 2012 Sun Media Website: http://www.stcatharinesstandard.ca/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/676 Author: Jeff Bolichowski CANINE COP SNIFFS FOR DRUGS Vader wants his toy, and that means sniffing out kids' secret stashes of drugs. The Niagara Regional Police dog had a few leads Tuesday - enough for handler Const. Ryan Dool to toss him the toy. But the sweep of classrooms and lockers at Governor Simcoe secondary school, led by principal Rick Karr with help from the pooch, turned up no drugs in the end. That's the kind of result Karr was happy to see. "Since we started working with the regional police, it's just been almost next to nothing," he said. He said students have been caught before when the school asks the NRP to bring in the K-9 unit for a drug search. But the dog, he said, has made a difference. Police call the school a model. They had dogs in six times last year. "(Students) think it's going to come by more often than it does," Karr said. "We see this as preventative. We want the message to be, 'This is a good school where drugs are targeted.'" Dool said how often officers go in to help with searches depends on the school administration. He said it's school administrators who do the actual searching because they're the ones with legal authority, but Vader helps sniff out evidence and pick out where to search. Tuesday, the school was put on lockdown. School staff filed kids out of classrooms one at a time, leaving their backpacks behind. That gave Vader leave to go to town. The dog, at 8 years old the force's most experienced drug-sniffer, roamed the lines of backpacks. The drug dogs are trained to glom in on the scent of narcotics. If they find it, they get a toy. They look for drug smells alone, so lunches don't throw them off. At one point Vader pawed urgently at a student's coat. School staff promptly took it out of the classroom and searched it. All told, staff dug through four or five bags and coats and a locker, but no drugs were found. And despite a few sullen faces from students, many could be heard commenting on the "cute dog." One even asked to pet him. "Kids love the dog," Dool said. "All schools have drug problems. It's just the nature of the culture now," he said. "It's either we're going against it, or we're doing something to keep it out of the schools." Karr said "99.9%" of students are good and wants to do the right thing. He said the classrooms and lockers searched aren't chosen at random. "You have to be proactive," he said. "We want to be as good a school as we can be." Const. Brian Knight, the NRP's school resource officer, said the searches aren't about imposing on kids. He said officers try to reach out, too. "We're not just here to arrest bad guys," he said. "We're here as a presence, as a resource." - --- MAP posted-by: Matt