STUDENTS LAUNCH OPERATION K-9

A group of future criminal justice professionals wants to do more than
simply express its support for police officers.

Criminal justice students at ITT Technical Institute in Earth City
have organized Operation K-9. Their target objective is to raise
$5,000, which would be donated to the St. Charles Police Department
for the purchase of a drug dog.

"It's an outstanding effort on their part to want to support the
police department," said Capt. Gerry Pollard of the St. Charles Police
Department. "We'll do everything in our power to put that donation
toward their goal of trying to help our K-9 unit."

The students hope to raise the money by Friday, when the school hosts
its 2nd Annual Earth City Community Festival. The festival includes
raffles, food, a dunking booth and other activities for the
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The festival is held in conjunction with ITT Tech's open house and is
a joint venture between the school of business and the school of
criminal justice.

All of the money raised by the criminal justice students would be
donated to the police department to assist with the purchase and
training of a new drug dog as well as the training of an officer to
work with the dog.

"We have one problem that is becoming a bigger problem on a daily
basis," Pollard said. "That is Interstate 70 and the drug traffic that
comes through our city everyday."

The department currently has two German Shepherds. The shepherds are
jack-of-all-trades police dogs, assisting officers with everything
from building searched to tracking to drug busts.

The department, however, wants a third dog, a Belgian Malinois,
exclusively trained as a drug dog.

"They're a little smaller, a little leaner. They are very athletic and
have a very, very good nose," Pollard said. "These dogs are very, very
good at detecting the drugs in hidden compartments on vehicles.

"We've done some research on it and throughout the country a lot of
police departments and sheriff departments are going to these types of
dogs because they're so good at drug detection."

Karen Finkenkeller, campus director of ITT Tech, said the school tries
to have a fund-raiser each year, but the goal is not just to raise
money.

"Education is not always about books and knowledge in the academic
sense. Part of education is to grow our students into good citizens,"
she said. "Someone once said to me, 'If you develop a volunteer once,
you develop a volunteer for life.' When you think of being a good
citizen within our community that's part of it."

Criminal justice students, she said, tend to be community minded
anyway, whether they are going to be a police officer, private
investigator or park ranger.

"There's a variety of different fields criminal justice students can
go into," Finkenkeller said. "They are drawn to it because they really
do want to do something for society."