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Police dogs get it WRONG about 85% of the time ~ lawsuits filed!

Melensdad

Melensdad

Jerk in a Hawaiian Shirt & SNOWCAT Moderator
Staff member
I've said it before and I'll say it again: An animal should not be able to nullify your RIGHT to be secure in your papers, person and possessions.

"Officer" chompy can't swear an Oath to uphold and defend the Constitutions either.

Legal challenge questions reliability of police dogs - News - ReviewJournal.com
Here is a snippet from the article, follow the link above for the full story:
. . . a team of researchers at the University of California, Davis set out to test the reliability of drug- and bomb-sniffing dogs.

The team assembled 18 police dogs and their handlers and gave them a routine task: go through a room and sniff out the drugs and explosives.

But there was a twist. The room was clean. No drugs, no explosives.

In order to pass the test, the handlers and their dogs had to go through the room and detect nothing.

But of 144 runs, that happened only 21 times, for a failure rate of 85 percent.

Although drug-sniffing dogs are supposed to find drugs on their own, the researchers concluded that they were influenced by their handlers, and that's what led to such a high failure rate.

The reliability of drug dogs and their handlers is at the heart of a lawsuit filed in state district court by two Nevada Highway Patrol K-9 troopers and a consultant, who claim that the Metropolitan Police Department's police dogs, and eventually NHP's own dogs, were "trick ponies" that responded to their handlers' cues, and therefore routinely violated citizens' rights to lawful search under the Fourth Amendment. . . ​
 
That sure brings into question a lot of busts using dogs along the highway as probable cause. I am surprised at the high failure rate with that many dogs. If they ever had a dog sniff my vehicle I would call bogus as there are so damn many smells of anything from farm chemicals to food to my own dogs to cow shit they would be overwhelmed.
 
muleman said:
That sure brings into question a lot of busts using dogs along the highway as probable cause. I am surprised at the high failure rate with that many dogs. If they ever had a dog sniff my vehicle I would call bogus as there are so damn many smells of anything from farm chemicals to food to my own dogs to cow shit they would be overwhelmed.
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I became curious about this because of a case in Illinois were a K9 officer used his dog in some VERY DUBIOUS circumstances to justify searching a car that should have never been searched. Don't get me wrong, I have no intention of bashing officers. I've got several friends who are police officers, but there is no question that a few bad officers give all the others a bad name. In the case of the Illinois K9 officer, its clearly a bad officer who gave his dog signals to indicate that a search was needed.

In the case of this test, its pretty clear that animals want to please their masters and may pick up on the desires of their handler even when the evidence does not actually exist. I'm not saying that all, or even most, K9 officers cause their dogs to trigger on their actions, I'm simply saying that a dog may be the unwitting participant in a mistake that can effectively take away rights of honest citizens.
 
Melensdad said:
In the case of this test, its pretty clear that animals want to please their masters and may pick up on the desires of their handler even when the evidence does not actually exist. I'm not saying that all, or even most, K9 officers cause their dogs to trigger on their actions, I'm simply saying that a dog may be the unwitting participant in a mistake that can effectively take away rights of honest citizens.
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If this is true, it would seem that the validity of using dogs for such tasks as police work is questionable at best. Good cop/bad cop...how will anyone know but THE COP? So he becomes the judge and jury, some thing no Cop has the right to be. I say if the dog F's up and what ever is being searched is clean, remove the dog form service. False postitives shouldn't be alowed.

I am not a big fan of police dogs. I remember their pics in the pre WW2 Germany, and how they were eventually used there by the "police". I just think our Law Enforcement may be headed there.....Knowing or unknowingly....:ermm::unsure:

Regards, Kirk
 
Dogs are trained buy people,people can have ulterior motives,and the cops that have too many false positives using dogs should be reassigned as they are not reliable dog handlers and trainers.dogs that do not have a near perfect record should be retired.JMHO
 

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I worked with some cops training dogs when I was a teen. Back then it was mostly to intimidate the blacks in Harrisburg they were worried about. They were good for crowd control but much the same as a good hound can get sidetracked running a scent there is a lot of margin for error. The overt excitement many handlers show the dog will result in the dog wanting to please his handler regardless of a scent. JMDFO
 
If the dogs were penalized for a false positive don't you think some of officers who would give the dog a message to act out the false positive would also have a little something they could plant in the right place to cover their K9 buddy and their own butt.

The whole thing is questionable to me.
 
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