CHS CANINE DRUG SEARCH COMES UP EMPTY

CEDARBURG - A first-ever drug sweep of the high school and the
adjacent parking lot Tuesday morning turned up no illegal drugs on
the grounds. Considering that one student was arrested for possessing
cocaine and prescription amphetamines to sell at the school last
month and other teens have been caught stealing and abusing Coricidin
cold medicine, the absence of drugs at CHS was good news to school officials.

"We're ecstatic," said Superintendent Daryl Herrick. "We are
extremely pleased with the result."

Parents received letters earlier in the school year informing them
that the search would occur sometime this year, but no one was told
when. The canine searchers are trained to alert for the odor of
marijuana, cocaine, heroin and methamphetamines, according to Police
Chief Tom Frank.

Twelve law enforcement agencies were involved in the search,
including the Ozaukee and Waukesha County Sheriff's Departments and
officers from the Mequon, Grafton, Port Washington, Fredonia,
Germantown, Sheboygan Falls, Glendale, Franklin and Jackson police
departments. The entire search took about 65 minutes, during which
time seven canine dogs and their handlers searched the halls, outside
the student lockers and all of the parking lots on school property

During the search, students were on lockdown and unable to leave the
classroom, said CHS Principal Robert Kobylski.

The search dogs did alert for the odor of drugs in five lockers and
three vehicles, Frank said. Since the dogs alert the way same for
each of the drugs, there was no way of knowing which drugs they had
detected, he said.

Kobylski said there was an "immediate" investigation into the
possible presence of drugs, which included interviews with the
students. But there was little school officials could do in terms of
discipline, Herrick said.

The participation of officers from so many area police departments
was needed to ensure that officers got in and out as quickly as
possible, Frank said."The numbers are needed to conduct the search
quickly, efficiently and with minimal disruption to the education of
the students," Frank said.

In addition, the canine searchers are only effective for a limited
period of time.

Officers from the outside agencies operate on a mutual aid basis,
providing personnel to each others' agencies at no cost. The search
cost the city police department about $634 for four officers who
worked a combined 13 hours of overtime in the search, Frank said.

A total of eight Cedarburg police officers worked the drug search.
Because the department needed to keep three other officers on patrol
in the city, additional officers were called in on overtime, Frank said.

This story appeared in the Ozaukee County News Graphic on November 16, 2006.