Do you have to be an officer?

[IAjailer]

Do you have to be a certified officer to have a certified drug detection dog? My county only has one and often times he is unable to search a vehicle if he is off work. I was wondering on the legal side of someone that isn't an officer to perform searches with their own certified k-9, may be a stupid question but its something that has been in conversation lately in our jail and no one can find any laws on it. Thanks for the help!

[Eurodog]

Do you have to be a certified officer to have a certified drug detection dog? My county only has one and often times he is unable to search a vehicle if he is off work. I was wondering on the legal side of someone that isn't an officer to perform searches with their own certified k-9, may be a stupid question but its something that has been in conversation lately in our jail and no one can find any laws on it. Thanks for the help!

In most places and in reality no, but obviously you would be better getting someone local to give you the legal state heads up. Might I suggest you contact Paul Samuelson from North Iowa K9. I met him last week in the UK and I think he can help you, but I would have thought there would not be a problem there are a good deal of Correctional Teams throughout the US and certainly in Europe......

[PtlCop]

In most places and in reality no, but obviously you would be better getting someone local to give you the legal state heads up. Might I suggest you contact Paul Samuelson from North Iowa K9. I met him last week in the UK and I think he can help you, but I would have thought there would not be a problem there are a good deal of Correctional Teams throughout the US and certainly in Europe......

I would say probably not. There are plenty of civilian teams that are certified in searching for persons and bodies. I'm sure there are some bloodhound teams that are used in conjunction with a tactical team to search for violent subjects who's handlers are civilians.

[k9 max]

My gut feeling tells me if there is a need for an additional K9 on the road then the department will train up a second dog. I think the odds of them calling the local jail to send out their dog for a vehicle search seem somewhat remote. The other issues then of concern would be having a civilian that has no training in search and seizure law possibly compromise some evidence.

[Eurodog]

My gut feeling tells me if there is a need for an additional K9 on the road then the department will train up a second dog. I think the odds of them calling the local jail to send out their dog for a vehicle search seem somewhat remote. The other issues then of concern would be having a civilian that has no training in search and seizure law possibly compromise some evidence.

Why not have civilian handlers? I do not think there would be any compromise in the chain of evidence, after all a good number of agencies have civilian scenes of crime officers and they have no issues with the chain of evidence. In any case there would be a certifed peace officer on scene and over seeing the search, both the free air scent outside the vehicle and if required the internal vehicle search....

I did it a couple of times when I lived in Texas without any problems but of course states differ in respect of individual state law........ The crook of your point is 'no training' but that can easily be addressed.

[k950]

We have utulized a civilian dog team in the past on an evidence recovery. He had a sworn officer with him and was acting as "agent" of law enforecemnt. No differnt than a CI. The problem I see would be the documented training hours and what policies and requirerments were adhered to for the handler and the K9. You would have to prove the "expert" part of the K9 and team to deal with court and possible appeals. Just my thoughts.