AUSTIN, Texas \u2014 Five new Texas Department of Public Safety K-9 teams are ready to deploy across the state after completing extensive training designed to strengthen narcotics enforcement, explosives detection and public safety operations.<\/p>\n
DPS announced the graduation on Friday adding four narcotics detection teams and one explosives detection team to its statewide K-9 program. Two officers also earned certifications as K-9 Tech Trainers.<\/p>\n
The narcotics detection dogs are trained to identify controlled substances including methamphetamine, heroin, cocaine and marijuana during traffic stops, package inspections and major criminal investigations. The explosives detection team is prepared to search schools, government facilities, crowded public spaces and large-scale events for commercial, military and homemade explosives.<\/p>\n
The graduating teams are:<\/p>\n
Trooper Issiac Espinoza and K-9 Kora, narcotics detection<\/p>\n
Trooper Matthew Ochoa and K-9 Solo, narcotics detection<\/p>\n
Trooper Robert Varner and K-9 Akela, narcotics detection<\/p>\n
Trooper Levi Wilcox and K-9 Banner, narcotics detection<\/p>\n
Trooper Bryan Rutland and K-9 Dagger, explosives detection<\/p>\n
Sergeant Bryan Fife and Corporal Jeremy Arizola graduated as certified K-9 Tech Trainers. <\/p>\n
Each K-9 team completed a nine-week training program, following six weeks of pre-training for the dogs, with the training focused on animal behavior, tactical operations, threat detection and working under pressure.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"AUSTIN, Texas \u2014 Five new Texas Department of Public Safety K-9 teams are ready to deploy across the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":370285,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[27,29,28],"class_list":["post-370384","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/370384","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=370384"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/370384\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/370285"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=370384"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=370384"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=370384"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}