By Katie Futterman
Las Vegas Review-Journal
LAS VEGAS — Officer Peppermint could not make it more than a few steps down the hall of Ed W. Clark High School Thursday morning before being stopped.
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“Can I pet it?” Jessie Granados, a senior at the high school, asked Clark County Police Officer Steven Patty.
“Oh absolutely,” Patty said, offering up his four-legged partner. “Yes please.”
Granados and her friend Leila Williams bent down to play with the dog and took pictures with her.
A three-year-old American Lab, Peppermint is one of six dogs in the Clark County School District Police’s K-9 unit. Unlike the more aggressive K-9s in the Metropolitan Police Department who are trained to apprehend suspects, CCSD’s K-9s are meant to be friendly and approachable. Police say they act as proactive and preventative measures and help CCSD Police build positive relationships with students.
“They are our most popular officers,” CCSD Police Lt. Bryan Zink told the Review-Journal.
Peppermint is one of the four dogs who exclusively detect guns by smelling burnt ammunition. The other two can smell drugs, though they do not alert to marijuana, given that it legal in Nevada, according to Patty. Every day, a computer generates three random high schools and four random classrooms for the K-9s to visit. Students are instructed to get out of their classroom, taking any important electronics with them, while the K-9 sniffs around. Those locations are then removed from the list after they are searched.
Clark Assistant Principal Shalee Okelberry said that she likes that in addition to the searches, the K-9s also come by just to say hello.
“What I love about the K-9 unit is that they build positive relationships with students. Sometimes there could be this negative perspective of law enforcement in general, but they’re able to overcome that really easily through the interaction with their pups,” she said.
On Thursday morning, Patty brought Peppermint into an Advancement Via Individual Determination (AVID) classroom, where juniors raised their hands to receive stickers with Peppermint’s face. Peppermint, meanwhile, rolled on the carpet and scratched herself. Most of the students had never met Peppermint, but they raved about Officer Oreo, who seemed to be a popular favorite, boasting over 8,000 Instagram followers.
Patty taught the students about how Peppermint works — she sniffs for gun powder, and sits very still when she finds something. When asked if the dogs could detect it on people’s hands, Patty said they are working on mobile odor.
“I like it, but it’s kind of scary,” Junior Griselda Castillo told the Review-Journal about seeing dogs in her school. “Because they’re big.”
When asked if they generally feel safe at school, Castillo and the two friends at her table gave a unanimous: “no.”
“You come in and you never know, because there’s always a school shooting,” Jordyn Cantley said. “So I feel like every day when you come into school it’s like, pray that you make it out. You never know.”
She referenced being spooked when she overheard freshmen a few weeks ago talking about how it would be easier to bring a knife as opposed to a gun to school.
In order to feel safer, the juniors at Clark said they would like more full, airport style detectors. CCSD implemented such technology at large sports games this year. The girls also said searches once a month would be helpful.
In addition to searching schools, the K-9s are also on call for active duty.
Patty and Peppermint, for instance, had gone to Cowen Behavior School earlier Thursday morning because of an investigation into a stolen gun from a student’s uncle in Henderson the night prior. Patty and Peppermint walked all over the school and waited for the suspected student’s bus, which they also walked. They did not find a gun.
Peppermint’s colleague, Springer and Cocker Spaniel mix Officer Jack, recently had success when he was called to a hospital where a man had used a gun. He located a man’s gun outside of the area the police had initially marked.
The K-9s are able to do the job of around 30 officers through their sniffing in open air, Patty said.
Proactive approach
Okelberry said she likes how the K-9s take a proactive approach, which she said helps students “be more resistant to having those naughty things on campus.”
When Patty told her that schools get taken off the list after being searched enough, she said: “I don’t want to be off the list. I want them to keep coming.”
She, like most people, had a favorite: Officer Oreo. Luckily for her, her daughter is known as Oreo’s favorite human.
“These are dogs that are trained to interact positively,” Zink said. “It makes us so much more approachable.”
Peppermint wasn’t the only dog at Clark High School that day. She got to exchange some kisses with Bowie, a diabetes alert dog who is a service dog for teacher Susan Schiller .
Her job may be hard work, but rest assured, Peppermint’s job is the highlight of her day. After all, it’s Patty’s job to make sure home is a little boring. Otherwise, she won’t have the motivation to go into work.
Contact Katie Futterman at kfutterman@reviewjournal.com.
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