POLICE TAKE DRUG DOGS TO SCHOOL

City Considers Using Canines On Regular Basis

PALM BAY - City officials hope Harley, an energetic police dog
spending time at Palm Bay's municipal charter school, will show
Brevard Public Schools that such dogs can -- and should -- be in the
city's public middle and high schools.

During months of weekly visits to the school, including some sniff
investigations of lockers in the middle school area of the Patriot
campus, the black Lab discovered no drugs and contributed to no
arrests. Nor did it bite anyone.

City Manager Lee Feldman hopes the district will see Harley as a
positive addition and change its position of granting the dogs access
only on a limited basis.

A year ago, Feldman asked the district to let drug-sniffing,
nonaggressive dogs accompany school resource officers at Southwest
Middle and Palm Bay and Bayside high schools. Those are public
schools run by the district, unlike Palm Bay Charter School's Patriot
campus, a municipal charter run by the city through a contract with
the district.

Citing concerns about expanded duties for officers, allergic or
dog-fearing students, and liability issues, district officials balked
at the city's request.

"We evaluated the number of drug possession incidents, the forced
interaction of students and dogs any time the school resource officer
was involved in student contacts, and the safety of students if a
bite did occur," Andrea Alford, director of district and school
security, said recently.

Alford said dogs by their nature "are capable of unpredictable
reactions that may result in their natural instinct to be aggressive,
regardless of their breed or temperament."

The district's current dog policy is to use dogs as part of the
process to sniff for bombs or narcotics only when students are not
present. The district cooperates with the Brevard County Sheriff's
Office and local law enforcement agencies.

"By using these nonthreatening dogs, we can provide a strong
deterrent and constant message to students who wish to bring
narcotics onto campus. In addition, these dogs can be trained to
sniff out weapons," Feldman wrote in a lengthy entry to his blog on
the city's Web site titled "Why Bob Can't Go to School." Bob is a police dog.

He said a 2007 National Citizen Survey of Palm Bay residents showed
that 92 percent of respondents support dogs in school.

Later, Alford, writing in a guest column in FLORIDA TODAY that
followed one by Palm Bay Police Chief Bill Berger supporting the
dogs, said, "As a compromise, the district did encourage Palm Bay
police to use the dogs as a prototype . . . in its schools and on all
our school sites at any time students are not present to search
lockers and classrooms."

Locker sniffer

Two-year-old Harley and his trainer, Palm Bay Police Officer Kevin
Morris, visit Patriot a few hours a week.

Morris said Harley, who weighs about 90 pounds, rarely interacts
directly with the older students as he walks the halls, but he does
with the younger ones.

During one visit, Morris touched a few lockers, nodded at the dog and
said "Show me." A rambunctious but leashed Harley stood on back legs
to smell the top lockers, then nosed the lower ones. He didn't sit to
indicate the presence of drugs. When he finished, Morris rewarded
Harley with a well-chewed purple toy.

"Good boy," Morris said, patting the dog's head.

ACLU, parents react

While city officials like the idea of using trained dogs to smell
lockers for contraband, officials from the American Civil Liberties
Union of Florida have concerns.

Kevin Aplin, vice president of the Brevard chapter of the ACLU, said
the dog's presence could make it easier to violate student rights and
to contradict constitutional protections against unreasonable
searches and seizures.

"My first concern is any search of a person or locker would violate
the rules of the Fourth Amendment unless there is a suspicion that a
prohibited or illegal substance is in the locker," he said. He said
even students in public schools have a right to privacy.

Randall Marshall, legal director of the state ACLU, questioned the
necessity of dogs in schools. They "seem to be another step in a
school trying to reach beyond education. Whatever happened to
parental responsibility?"

Feldman said there have been no complaints from parents.

Patriot Principal Eric Lewis said the dog's presence appears to ease
some parent's safety concerns. "It gives peace of mind for our
community and shows we are trying to be proactive," he said.

Parent Arianna Grieves is fine with dogs. "I don't have any problems
with it. I can see the good it does," she said, adding that
drug-sniffing dogs were used in the high school she attended in New Mexico.

Kari Pope has children in kindergarten and seventh grade at Patriot.
"It does make me feel a bit safer. It's a shame that it comes to
that, but in this day and age, there's going to be drugs," she said.