The 18-month-old German short-haired pointer is trained to sniff out a substance used in the manufacturing of devices used for storing electronic media, such as smartphones, flash drives and memory cards, said prosecutor’s office Detective Daniel Farid. — Image by master1305 on Freepik
There are plenty of police dogs who can sniff out drugs and explosives, nab fleeing suspects and help locate missing people.
Now, there’s a new type of K-9 in New Jersey trained to locate hidden stashes of child pornography.
That’s the chief responsibility of the Gloucester County Prosecutor’s newest – and most adorable – staff member, a scent-detecting dog named Walt.
The 18-month-old German short-haired pointer is trained to sniff out a substance used in the manufacturing of devices used for storing electronic media, such as smartphones, flash drives and memory cards, said prosecutor’s office Detective Daniel Farid.
Perpetrators frequently download illegal material onto one of these devices, then hide it, possibly from a spouse or in case the police come calling, according to Farid.
“Our suspects are in society, they do have regular jobs, they do have family members, they do have friends that they need to hide this part of their life from,” he said.
Walt arrived from Croatia in March, and was trained and graduated from the New Jersey State Police Canine Training Academy in June with a certification in electronic scent detection.
He’s only the fifth dog trained with this skill in New Jersey, Farid said.
Walt is trained to detect a chemical called triphenylphosphine oxide, which is commonly used in electronics production, Farid explained.
Even inside the casing of a cellphone or when a tiny memory card is masked by other odors, Walt can still sniff out the chemical.
“He was trained on everything down to a micro SD placed on top of an air freshener that we had just plugged in to try to distract him,” Farid said. “And he still found that micro SD.”
Gloucester County Prosecutor’s Office Chief of Detectives Tom Gilbert described Walt as a “low-tech solution to a high-tech problem,” noting that prosecutors can’t make their cases without the kinds of evidence the K-9 is trained to find.
Farid and Walt, along with the agency’s high-tech crimes unit, are based at the prosecutor’s new Child Advocacy Center in Woodbury. The facility provides a safe place for young crime victims to speak with investigators and it’s where experts can help kids and their families navigate the criminal justice system.
Walt’s also a certified therapy dog, so he also helps traumatised kids feel at ease, Farid said.
The cost to acquire Walt – around US$10,000 (RM44,100) – and to pay for his training was covered through fundraising by the Friends of the Child Advocacy Center of Gloucester County, Farid said.
To demonstrate Walt’s abilities, Farid hid a cell phone and a flash drive in a brightly lit, welcoming room in the advocacy center.
The K-9 stopped to pose for a photo when a news photographer brought out his camera, but was all business when Farid told him “let’s go to work.”
Walt scoured the room, intently sniffing around chairs and bookcases. He even studied a series of picture frames on a wall.
It didn’t take long before he found the phone hidden in a couch. He sniffed out the flash drive, concealed on a bookshelf, soon after.
As part of his training, Walt’s rewarded – in the form of a favourite toy he likes to chew – when he finds the correct odour and leads investigators to evidence.
When he detects the telltale scent, he alerts his handler by stopping and sitting at the spot. Based on that, Farid will ask another colleague to search the area for hidden devices.
When the work day is over, Walt easily transitions to home life. He lives with Farid’s family and likes playing with the detective’s 2-year-old daughter, Jane.
“He is absolutely phenomenal. We go home and he knows it’s not work time anymore,” said Farid, who calls the dog both Walt and Walter. “He’ll plop down on the floor. He plays with my daughter. His temperament is very relaxed.”
Local child porn investigations generally result from referrals by the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force, a network of federal, state and local law enforcement agencies that acts as a clearing house for tips about child porn distribution.
When prosecutor’s office detectives serve a warrant on a suspect, the challenge becomes finding the materials.
As the size of storage devices has gotten smaller – some the size of a fingernail – the job of finding evidence has gotten harder, Farid said.
“We want to leave that house knowing we’ve gotten every piece of evidence,” he said. “In order to do that, we need another tool to sense what we can’t sense.”
While humans experience the world around them via sight, dogs do it differently.
“They perceive through odour. When that dog’s smelling you, he’s smelling where you’ve been that day, who you talked to, what you had for lunch, where you walked,” Farid said. “When me and Walter walk into a room, I’m viewing it with my eyes and he’s viewing it with his nose.”
The case against disgraced Subway sandwich chain pitchman Jared Fogle, who pleaded guilty in 2015 to possession and distribution of child porn in Indiana, was the first high-profile case in which electronic scent-detection dogs were used, Farid said.
“The electronic scent-detection dog in that case found the piece of evidence that was salient to his conviction,” Farid said.
In his first month on the job, Walt has already been out on six search warrants, and his cases have taken him across South Jersey to assist other agencies with his particular set of skills.
Walt isn’t limited to child porn searches.
Most criminal investigations these days include a trail of digital evidence, Farid said. So, Walt can be called out for many types of cases.
“Even a homicide investigation where a cellphone is going to be evidentiary, Walt is going to be available for that investigation and most likely deployed if that cellphone is not found immediately,” he said.
The new pup on the force has already proven his value on a search assignment at the home of a child porn suspect.
“Walt did actually recover a laptop that us, as investigators, missed,” Farid said. “We had confiscated 18 devices by that point, thought that was it, and then Walter goes in and found another device.”
The computer was hidden under a bed in a hard-to-spot area, he said, but it couldn’t escape Walt’s nose.
In K-9 training, devices are hidden above drop ceilings, behind light switches, up in trees and even underground, Farid said. All of those scenarios had been encountered in real cases.
Farid said the office gets many tips a week regarding suspected online child porn activity in the area.
“We go out typically on average once a week to execute one of these search warrants,” he said.
In his other role as a therapy dog, Walt works with the local group Furever As Friends. Their Silent Mentors in Literacy Education, or SMILE, program pairs therapy dogs with young kids working on their reading skills who may find it easier to read out loud to a non-judgmental pet than a human.
For Walt, developing that skill will help when he’s called to support a young sex crime victim at the Child Advocacy Center, Farid said.
Victims can find it hard to open up and talk about the worst moments of their young lives, he said, but a therapy dog can make that process a little easier.
Walt has already demonstrated his ability to help kids open up, the detective added, describing a recent evening at the SMILE program when a child who was deathly afraid of dogs ended up hugging Walt after spending just an hour with him.
That skill means Walt could help solve cases on two fronts, both by finding physical evidence and by giving victims the courage to share their experiences with investigators and prosecutors.
“To be able to do that with a kid is helping us bridge that gap of, it’s OK to disclose these things to us,” Farid said. “We’re here to help.” – nj.com/Tribune News Service
