CLEVELAND, Tenn. — The Cleveland Police Department has welcomed home a new K-9, the first of his kind in Southeast Tennessee.
The one-year-old black lab is named Kache, and is trained as an Electronic Storage Detection K-9.
ESD K-9’s are trained to locate evidence such as cellphones, computers, SD cards, and flash drives.
His main job will be assisting investigators with the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force.
There’s a multitude of ways that we can use him. Primarily is partnering with our ICAT Task Force, which is the Internet Crimes Against Children. That’s probably 90% of what he’ll be doing. But we can use him for protection details. We can use him for, you know, another way that he is trained is as like an emotional support canine, said Lt. Fox.
Kache is also a certified therapy K-9, which his handler Lieutenant Kody Fox says he provides comfort to officers and staff at the Cleveland Police Department.
Kache was provided through a partnership with the U.S. Secret Service at no cost.
The National Computer Forensic Institute, they use that to partner with our local law enforcement like us to help provide us training, said Lt. Fox.
The K-9 can sniff out the glue that is found on motherboards on any device that can hold data.
The way that technology is advancing and the way that criminals are advancing, I think it’s kind of pivotal. But it may, may have been, you know, 10 or 15 years before we were able, as a department, to do that. So that’s why we’re so thankful to, like, the Secret Service and those partnerships, because he’s really kind of stepped our game up, said Lt. Fox.
Lieutenant Fox says this is crucial in investigations, as those electronic devices could contain key evidence, such as sensitive photos or financial information.
Kache will also be used as a protection detail and emotional support dog specifically when children do forensic interviews.
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