The City of Early approved the addition of a new K-9 officer to the police department after a unanimous vote of the city council at Tuesday evening’s meeting.
Early Chief of Police David Mercer stated that the department is excited about the K-9 which will be used in drug interdiction and tracking of missing individuals.
“We’re all excited to have an addition to the department in order to serve the community,” said Mercer who explained that the new K-9 will also be used in drug searches at the schools and will be available to meet the younger students of Early ISD.
The addition of a new K-9 officer comes after the previous K-9 “Tessa” was retired from the force about 2 years ago. Tessa, according to Mercer, was different from the new K-9 in that she was also used as an attack dog for the department. Being an attack dog, “Tessa” required ongoing training. The new K-9 will be a people friendly dog, according to Mercer.
“The new K-9 will not be an attack dog, they are too hard to maintain and in a small department, we just don’t have the facility or funds,” said Mercer.
Corporal Brandon McMillan will be the trainer and partner of the new K-9. He will attend a school in March where he will be matched with a dog who is approximately 90% trained for drug interdiction and tracking. Mercer explained that the remainder of the training will take place during the school with McMillan training the K-9 he is matched with.
The breed of the dog as well as the sex of the dog is not known at this time, because McMillan will be paired with a dog as personalities are matched. Mercer explained that two German Shepherds of interest have been identified; however they may wind up with a different dog of another breed depending on which dog best matches Cpl. McMillan’s personality and will be most likely to bond well with him.
Mercer stated that taking on the K-9 officer is a big responsibility, “He has to live with him, it’s not a nine to five job.”
Early City Administrator Ken Thomas stated that after interest was shown by Cpl. McMillan to have another K-9 with the department; EPD began researching what it would cost the city to have another K-9 and began gathering donations to help offset some of the costs.
“After considerable discussion we lined out the city’s responsibilities, such as insurance and additional pay (to the officer partner) for training, we decided to give it a shot again,” said Thomas.
Since in the absence of “Tessa,” the department has been assisted by the Brown County Sheriff’s Department in K-9 searches.
“Early is kind of a unique location, with highways 67, 377 and 183 intersecting in the city. There’s a lot of drug traffic that comes through here,” said Thomas. “They’ve caught a few quite a few without a dog and we feel they might be able to catch many more with one. At times, the BCSO would be tied up on other business and we felt this would be a benefit to the city.”
