TAMPA, Fla. — The Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office is hoping to take a bite out of crime with two new K-9 deputies dedicated to sniffing out contraband.
But these dogs won’t be on the street. They’ll be on the inside, working at the county’s detention centers and jail.
Watson and Holmes are a pair of German Shorthaired Pointers with a nose for illegal drugs.
The sheriff’s office has always had K-9 units available for drug searches at its jail and detention centers, but Watson and Holmes are being brought in to sniff people and packages full-time.
“I wanted to have dedicated canines in the jail where their sole focus is making sure they are in detention facilities,” Sheriff Chad Chronister said.
The sheriff says two years ago, they had 289 contraband incidents. This year, that number was down to 172.
In their first week on the job, Watson and Holmes have shown their value, sniffing out a substance in an abandoned backpack, Chronister said, and again, hidden in the underwire of a female inmate’s bra.
“We're trying to determine not only what the substance is, but how did it get there? How did it get in there?” he said.
Chronister says in the past year, 46 inmates have been exposed to some sort of illicit narcotics to the point where they needed Narcan to revive them.
Two members of his HCSO team were also treated.
While some of the contraband comes from the outside, three jail vendors have been arrested in the last 90 days, the sheriff said, and two inmate deputies were charged with bringing in THC-laced contraband earlier this year.
“I don't think anyone is immune to the temptation of making additional money,” Chronister said. “Because the inmates are willing to pay.”
In addition to the enhanced K-9 sweeps, the sheriff announced the agency would be upgrading scanners at the jail and detention centers as well. 25 percent more effective, he said.
And those scans and K-9 sweeps will include everyone. Inmates, visitors, contractors, vendors and even his own deputies.
“I know a lot of people are like – how can you do that to your own employees? This has to stop,” Chronister said. “When I say that we are going to take every step to make sure that our employees and the inmates in our care, custody, and control are safe, I mean every step.”