Media release from the Floyd County, GA Police Department:
Earlier this week, the Floyd County Police Department and Defenders for Children organization presented and demonstrated its new Electronic Detection Canine team, Captain Ojilvia Lom and canine “Billy.”
Georgia’s latest innovation in policing is not an advanced camera system, artificial intelligence (AI), or a new advanced drone system. Instead, it is a new skill applied to law enforcement by a time-honored familiar source, police canines. Long known for their keen ability to detect illicit drugs and bombs, and track fleeing felons, in an amazing new advancement, specially trained police dogs and their police officer partners have developed the ability to sniff out and detect concealed electronic devices.
As the law enforcement community continues to strive to improve their ability to locate missing at-risk children and adults, police canines capable of detecting electronic devices they carry or have lost, have proven to be very helpful. In addition, the canines are wonderful intermediaries with stressed frightened individuals.
Police canine trainers and handlers have also found that electronic detection canines can be invaluable in keeping up with criminals who are more tech-savvy and cunning than ever. Officers these days often find themselves dealing with gang members involved in drug trafficking, human trafficking, and selling guns stolen by organized car break-in groups. Many gangs have graduated from recruiting and bragging about their activities on social media to covertly storing information about their criminal activities on mobile phones and electronic storage devices that are not connected to the cloud or internet.
As gangs have grown in sophistication, they have learned if they store or transmit their records on the internet or in cloud applications, their data can be discovered, downloaded and used as evidence by law enforcement. Conversely, to the extent they store their lists of suppliers, contacts and cash payments on removable electronics like cell phones, flash drives, and SD cards, they can control and carry their records with them, sharing them only in the shadows, sort of like spies. Nonetheless, electronic detection canines can now help officers find and seize the electronic storage devices, even if suspects toss them out as they are being pursued on foot or in vehicle chases.
For law enforcement, the breakthrough of electronic detection canines is the result of several years of applied research by law enforcement forensic scientists. They have isolated a compound called triphenylphosphine oxide (TPPO)–that covers the circuit boards in nearly all electronic storage devices
ranging from large hard drives to microSD cards to prevent them from overheating. TPPO is the latest version of another compound known as hydroxy cyclohexyl phenyl ketone (HPK), previously found on
removable media, such as CDs, DVDs, Blu-Ray discs, and even floppy disks.
Fortunately, police dogs are very adaptable, and like Billy and his human partner, Captain Ojilvia Lom, they are being trained and retrained to detect even faint or minute traces of both substances found uniquely in electronic devices.
Why electronic detection canines will be helpful in Georgia is simple. Like other states, the complexity of crime trends in our state has grown exponentially since 2020. From urban terrorists continuing to stalk Atlanta’s Public Safety Training Center to human traffickers plying their disgusting trades in hotels and motels all along our interstate highways, we are dealing with more prolific and sophisticated crime trends than ever before. We still have defiant sanctuary cities and counties harboring violent international fugitives while drug cartels continue to distribute poisonous Chinese Fentanyl to Georgia’s youth. In addition, our senior citizen population remains plagued by cruel white-collar professional scam organizations that con them out of their life savings. In all, law enforcement’s need for more forward-reaching law enforcement tools is greater than ever and electronic detection canines are just such a tool.
In the spirit of cooperation among law enforcement agencies, the Floyd County Police Department is offering to assist other law enforcement agencies with electronic detection canine services as needed.
In everything we do to rescue missing persons and fight crime in Georgia, we should never discount the contributions of our tail-wagging friend, the amazing police canine. The wet nose knows.
For further information concerning electronic detection canines, consult the Defenders for Children website at https://www.defendersforchildren.org/
Photo from Floyd County, GA Police Department
