Tribune Analysis:

DRUG-SNIFFING DOGS IN TRAFFIC STOPS OFTEN WRONG

High Number of Fruitless Searches of Hispanics' Vehicles Cited As
Evidence of Bias

Drug-sniffing dogs can give police probable cause to root through
cars by the roadside, but state data show the dogs have been wrong
more often than they have been right about whether vehicles contain
drugs or paraphernalia.

The dogs are trained to dig or sit when they smell drugs, which
triggers automobile searches. But a Tribune analysis of three years
of data for suburban departments found that only 44 percent of those
alerts by the dogs led to the discovery of drugs or paraphernalia.

For Hispanic drivers, the success rate was just 27 percent.

Dog-handling officers and trainers argue the canine teams' accuracy
shouldn't be measured in the number of alerts that turn up drugs.
They said the scent of drugs or paraphernalia can linger in a car
after drugs are used or sold, and the dogs' noses are so sensitive
they can pick up residue from drugs that can no longer be found in a car.

But even advocates for the use of drug-sniffing dogs agree with
experts who say many dog-and-officer teams are poorly trained and
prone to false alerts that lead to unjustified searches. Leading a
dog around a car too many times or spending too long examining a
vehicle, for example, can cause a dog to give a signal for drugs
where there are none, experts said.

"If you don't train, you can't be confident in your dog," said Alex
Rothacker, a trainer who works with dozens of local drug-sniffing
dogs. "A lot of dogs don't train. A lot of dogs aren't good."

The dog teams are not held to any statutory standard of performance
in Illinois or most other states, experts and dog handlers said,
though private groups offer certification for the canines.

Civil rights advocates and Latino activists say the findings support
complaints that police unfairly target Hispanic drivers for invasive
and embarrassing roadside vehicle searches.

"We know that there is a level of racial profiling going on, and this
is just another indicator of that," said Virginia Martinez, a
Chicago-based staff attorney for the Mexican American Legal Defense
and Educational Fund.

Adam Schwartz, an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union in
Illinois, said the innocent suffer from unjustified searches.

"We've seen a national outcry about being frisked and scanned at
airports," Schwartz said. "The experience of having police take your
car apart for an hour is far more invasive and frightening and humiliating."

Police insist no racial profiling

The Tribune obtained and analyzed data from 2007 through 2009
collected by the state Department of Transportation to study racial
profiling. But the data are incomplete. IDOT doesn't offer guidance
on what exactly constitutes a drug dog alert, said spokesman Guy
Tridgell, and most departments reported only a handful of searches
based on alerts. At least two huge agencies -- the Chicago Police
Department and Illinois State Police -- reported none.

The Tribune asked both agencies for their data, but state police
could not provide a breakdown of how often their dog alerts led to
seizures, and Chicago police did not provide any data.

That leaves figures only for suburban departments. Among those whose
data are included, just six departments averaged at least 10 alerts
per year, with the top three being the McHenry County sheriff's
department, Naperville police and Romeoville police.

Romeoville did not respond to requests for comment, but Naperville
and McHenry County authorities insisted there was no racial profiling
and defended the performance of their dogs and handlers.

The McHenry County's sheriff's department had the most dog alerts,
finding drugs or paraphernalia in 32 percent of 103 searches. In the
eight searches on Hispanic drivers, officers reported finding drugs just once.

Since September 2008, Deputy Jeremy Bruketta has handled Sage, one of
the McHenry County department's two drug-sniffing German shepherds.
Officers sometimes come up empty-handed in searches of vehicles that
clearly once contained drugs, he said, recalling a traffic stop in
which a man, reeking of pot, had a marijuana stem stuck to his shirt
but no drugs were found in the car.

In Naperville, 47 percent of searches turned up drugs or
paraphernalia, though searches on Hispanic drivers turned up drugs in
only one of 12 traffic stops, for a rate of 8 percent.

Officer Eddie Corneliusen, who handles Kairo, one of Naperville's two
police dogs, also cited drug residue and said he's "confident that
(the dog) is hitting on the odor of narcotics."

Inconsistent training and standards

Experts and trainers agree that residue could be to blame for some
false positives.

In a cavernous, chilly building at the abandoned former Lake County
Fairgrounds, Rothacker, the trainer, demonstrated the dogs' ability
to pinpoint not only drugs, but also residue.

Rothacker, who works with some 60 area police dogs and handlers at
TOPS Kennels in Grayslake, rubbed a bag of marijuana against a cinder
block in the wall. Two German shepherds he trained alerted on the
block with little hesitation, earning sessions of play with handlers
who control the dogs' beloved chew toys.

But Rothacker said false alerts can't be blamed on residue alone.

Rothacker, who trained dogs for both Naperville and McHenry County,
said many trainers use suspect methods and some handlers are "very
lazy" about training their dogs. After initial intensive instruction
for dog and handler, Rothacker offers twice-weekly training to
handlers diligent enough to keep showing up, he said.

"The dogs are only as good as the handlers," he said.

Experts said police agencies are inconsistent about the level of
training they require and few states mandate training or
certification. Jim Watson, secretary of the North American Police
Work Dog Association, said a tiny minority of states require
certification, though neither he nor other experts could say exactly how many.

A federally sponsored advisory commission has recommended a set of
best practices, though they are not backed by any legal mandate.

Illinois state Rep. Jim Durkin, R- Western Springs, sponsored a bill
in 2007 that would have created a certification board responsible for
setting standards that all police dogs would have to meet, but the
bill died in a Senate committee after passing in the House. Durkin, a
former Cook County prosecutor who referred to police dogs as
"probable cause with four legs," said he may push the legislation again.

"This one makes sense," he said.

State Rep. Monique Davis wants the drug-dog issue vetted by a state
panel on racial profiling. Davis, D-Chicago, co-sponsored a 2004 law
to collect the police data. Seven years later, she said racial
profiling remains a problem.

"This is the kind of information the commission is supposed to
discuss," she said.

False cues

Civil rights advocates and detector-dog experts said the lack of
regulation or standards has led police to subject innocent drivers to
prolonged, humiliating roadside searches.

The state's data -- in which drivers and officers aren't identified
- -- show that the average false alert led to a stop lasting nearly a
half-hour. One Crystal Lake search led to a three-hour stop for a
Hispanic man in 2007. He was stopped for a license plate/registration
violation, according to the data.

The main check on the competency of a dog-handling officer comes in
court, where a defense lawyer may question a dog's ability to sniff
out drugs. But, by their nature, the stops that don't lead to drug
seizures don't get reviewed by a judge.

The limited court oversight and lack of uniform standards leave vast
discrepancies in the skills of dog-and-officer teams, experts agreed.

Dog handlers can accidentally cue alerts from their dogs by leading
them too slowly or too many times around a vehicle, said Lawrence
Myers, an Auburn University professor who studies detector dogs.
Myers pointed to the "Clever Hans" phenomenon in the early 1900s,
named after a horse whose owner claimed the animal could read and do
math before a psychologist determined the horse was actually
responding to his master's unwitting cues.

Training is the key to eliminating accidental cues and false alerts,
said Paul Waggoner of Auburn's detector-dog research program.

"Is there a potential for handlers to cue these dogs to alert?" he
asked. "The answer is a big, resounding yes."

That frustrates Martinez, the attorney from the Mexican American
Legal Defense and Educational Fund.

Dogs do not have the human failings that have led to the targeting of
minorities, but Martinez worries that an officer's bias can translate
through the dog leash. She fears drug-sniffing dogs are another tool
to justify roadside searches of innocent drivers, the unfair
consequences of what she called "driving while Mexican."

"People of color are just targets," she said.