An organization utilizing skilled dogs to look DFW faculties says they’ve discovered as much as 30 weapons on native campuses this college yr.
The photographs the search workforce offered to NBC 5 are hanging: dozens of capsules and handguns discovered on campuses within the Metroplex.
It’s the truth these safety specialists are attempting to place a cease to.
“Our biggest fears are fentanyl and firearms,” stated Josh Ellis, proprietor of H1 K9 Consultants. “Those are the two biggest things, even as a handler.”
H1 K9 is a personal firm that makes use of canine handlers to conduct campus searches in partnership with 100 native districts.
The firm informed NBC 5 that since August, they’ve discovered as much as 30 weapons and made round 1500 drug seizures in DFW faculties.
“The numbers are there, and it’s very scary,” Ellis stated.
For the previous few years, Garland ISD has been utilizing these search dogs on campuses day-after-day.
“A kid can’t learn when they’re looking over their shoulder, that’s our motto,” stated Mark Quinn, director of safety with Garland ISD. “So we wanted to add the K9 program, it’s just another tool in our toolbox.”
During a typical search, the canine workforce would arrive on a Garland ISD campus and make their approach to a classroom that had been cleared of scholars who had left their backpacks behind.
The canine would transfer rapidly from bag to bag earlier than indicating they’d discovered one thing.
Inside one bag within the simulated search was a small handgun. In one other backpack, imitation fentanyl.
“It is a great tool that we can use and we do use it to find those things on campus and get them out of here,” Quinn stated.
District leaders informed NBC 5 that when weapons or narcotics are discovered they launch an analysis of the coed, contemplating instruments like self-discipline, psychological well being assets, or legal penalties.
While they couldn’t be in all places on a regular basis, this workforce of canine searchers hoped they might play some half in making campuses safer.
“You know every time we take a gun out of a school, it’s a good feeling that we did something great that day,” Ellis stated. “That maybe we saved a life that day.”
