KTVU asked a number of former law enforcement officers and dog handlers, police dog trainers, civil rights attorneys and policy makers about how California could better regulate K-9s.
Ron Cloward is a retired Modesto police lieutenant and dog handler. He now operates a police K-9 training academy in Ripon, Calif.Ron Cloward is a retired Modesto police lieutenant who has been working with K-9s for decades. He famously led the search for Laci Peterson with his team of dogs, and later testified for the prosecution against her husband Scott Peterson.
Ernie Burwell is a former K-9 handler for the Los Angeles County Sheriff Department who now advocates for reforming how dogs are used in policing. He said dogs bit 80% of people they were used on when he worked in Los Angeles. The department later changed its policy to require supervisors go on calls, prompting the department’s bite ratio to drop to 18%. Burwell said in particular the Belgian Malinois breed – a close relative of the German Shepard – that are often used as police K-9s "do not want to let go."Reginald Tolan works in private corporate security in Oakland and trains K-9s.
Breeders began singling out traits that made the dogs ideal guarding the Soviet borders going back to the 1940s and 1950s, he said. Those same traits are now part of many dogs’ DNA and controlling them can be a challenge.
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