GTPD’s K-9 dogs are furry, valuable part of police force

For most students, the Georgia Tech Police Department makes its presence felt through its patrolling of the campus during the day and throughout the night.

However, some of the police cars carry a relatively unknown part of the GTPD’s task force-its K-9 unit, which is made up of Zeus and Tiger, two German shepherds, and their handlers, officers Erich Frechen and Paul Honcharik.

Tech initiated a K-9 unit in March of 2003. However, Frechen began training police dogs eight years ago and has been a police officer for three years. He came to Tech when the police department asked him to start the K-9 unit.

Frechen had to go through 180 hours of training with Zeus, as well as a separate 160-hour class, in order to become certified as a trainer of police K-9 units.

Tech’s K-9 dogs can apprehend criminals and track people who are missing or hiding. They are also a great crime deterrent, both physically and psychologically. “Will a person wanting to commit a crime do it near a dog barking like crazy? No, he’ll probably find someplace else that does not have a dog,” Frechen said.

He added, “My car sits six inches lower in the back because the springs have worn down from Zeus’ barking.”

“It’s a big game to [the perpetrators] until they realize a dog is there,” Frechen said. “People start acting like they want to fight, and I tell them, ‘Do you hear that dog barking? If we start to fight, he’s going to come for one of us, and it’s not going to be me,’ and they settle down really quickly.”

Though there is no way to completely eliminate crime, “If you can keep it away from...where you are responsible for, that’s a big plus,” Frechen said. “Crime is down 30 percent on campus...since we started the K-9 unit.”

He added, “We’ve looked at stats, and a lot of times when things are happening here, they are times when there is no dog around.”

According to Frechen, the homeless and drug addicts can be a problem on campus, and the dogs help keep watch. “We patrol, practice and train, keep the dog smart, are seen on campus, and talk to people who might be suspicious,” Frechen said.

The dogs are also valuable if a perpetrator does decide to get aggressive, serving as “bullets you can recall,” Frechen said. If an officer fires a gun during a standoff, even if the perpetrator gives up, he may still be shot. A dog can be called back, giving the perpetrator a chance to surrender without getting seriously hurt, Frechen said.

“Unfortunately, in our society there is always going to be the need [for guns],” Frechen said. “So dogs will never take the place of guns, but they are a psychological deterrent.”

For the dogs, apprehending a perpetrator is sort of a game: sometimes the dog will try to get the perpetrator to move so he can purposefully bite him, but otherwise the dog is trained to wait. The bite is a controlled one, meant to immobilize the perpetrator, not hurt him. “We want the perp to be compliant,” Frechen said.

There are two different types of scent specialties a dog can be trained for, bombs and narcotics; Zeus and Tiger have a specialty for bombs. Usually, a K-9 dog specializes in one or the other, so as not to cause confusion.

To find a bomb, the dog must do a passive search, meaning he must not scratch or dig to find a bomb or he might set it off. Instead, when the dog scents a bomb, he is trained to sit.

Frechen laughed, “If you ever see us out and about and my dog sits, you’re going to see me running and just try to keep up, because he’s found a bomb.”

A search-and-find is very stressful to a dog: one short bomb search is equivalent to a person running two miles.

The dogs are also talented at searching and finding people. During a training session, a K-9 dog found a person hiding in a building the size of the police station in less than five minutes. By comparison, the same search would take five officers half an hour.

Zeus and Tiger also have the distinction of being the only two dogs in Fulton County who are also full patrol dogs. Tech’s K-9 units have mutual aid agreements with the surrounding areas, meaning that they can be called upon to help in situations that occur off campus.

Zeus and Tiger are also two out of six or seven dogs in the country that can deploy out of the windows of a police car, Frechen said.

The relationship between owner and dog is both professional and personal. In the mornings, Frechen said, “It is like the dog is going to work: I hold out his work collar, the one with a badge on it, and I tell him to put on his uniform, and he slips his head into the collar.”

However, “at home at night, he sleeps at the foot of my bed; he’s a baby,” he said. “He never barks...and will play with anyone I let into the house. It’s like flipping a switch."