Hanceville Police K-9 Unit making big impact on drug arrests

HANCEVILLE, Ala. – The Tribune had the opportunity to sit down Friday afternoon and talk with Hanceville Police Department Sgt. Joshua Howell and his K-9, Tazer. The department’s other K-9, Zero, and his handler, Cpl. Zac Chrietzberg, were not able participate in the interview due to Zero being on the night shift, said Howell. Both Zero and Tazer are narcotics dogs.

“We only have narcotics dogs here at the Hanceville Police Department,” said Howell, “because we don’t want anything associated with any kind of violence or anything like that. Our dogs are meant to keep the community safe from drugs and things like that.”        

Tazer, now 13 months old, became part of the HPD back in November 2018, when the City of Hanceville received a $25,000 anonymous donation for a narcotics dog. The department used that donation for Tazer and the necessary equipment to care for him.

Howell said, “We hadn’t had a K-9 in years. It’s been several years since we’ve had a K-9 unit.”

That was, until this past February, when Howell and Tazer completed the necessary requirements and courses in order to be certified.

“We’ve had numerous (drug) seizures and arrests since then,” said Howell. “The biggest bust he’s (Tazer) had so far is 9 pounds out of a storage unit. Storage units, they’re hard to search because the airflow through them; it could be moving through different areas of the storage buildings and it throws off the scent. It’s been very lucrative for us, and it’s helped us. He’s a big asset, along with Zero.”

Zero came on board in March, also thanks to an anonymous donor.

“Both of the K-9s that we have are awesome at what they do,” Howell said. “We train weekly with the dogs. Some agencies, they train monthly, but we think that our dogs, we want our dogs to be the best out there. We train them weekly to get them more proficient at what they’re doing- for searching, finding drugs and keeping our community safe. That’s our ultimate goal.”         

Howell said Tazer immediately made a difference after becoming part of the HPD.

“I acquired him (Tazer) first in November.  Zero was acquired in March. Me and Tazer came and we went to training in January, spent five weeks, came out the first of February, and after that, a week into being on patrol, he made a drug arrest already. We went from there; we’ve done search warrants with our narcotics team, several seizures off that, arrests and some assets as well.”

He continued, “After Zero came in, we have one K-9 on night shift, and I’m (with Tazer) on day shift. Anything that’s needed to be done on days I do and anything that’s needed on nights, Zero (with Chrietzberg) does.”

Chrietzberg passed his courses with Zero in June.

“That’s the thing we have to go through- countless hours of training, I think it’s 160 hours that we have to have to be a K-9 handler.”       

In person, Tazer is a very happy, docile dog who just wants to play.

Howell smiled, “As you can see, he’s a very happy dog. He’s very happy, very gentle. He likes to play and he might even want you to tug on (his toy), cause that’s the thing, he just likes to play.”

The K-9s are groomed routinely, usually once every two weeks.

Said Howell, “If not, then once a month. We take them down to PetSmart and have them groomed, the whole nine yards. It’s a 24/7 job. When I get off work, I still have to go home and let him out of the car to play, things of that nature, feed him, water him, just like you would any kid. It’s a job, 24/7, even on the weekends, on my time off, I still have to get him out and play with him and do searches. Because if we don’t do that, they sit in that kennel and they start getting anxiety and they get stressed. So we have to get them out, run them, let them play. Let them be a dog, more or less.”

Howell said the K-9s have been instrumental in multiple drug arrests.

“Like I said before, we’ve made several drug arrests, about one arrest a week off of the dogs. Or K-9s, I shouldn’t call them dogs, because they’re more than dogs. I know I’ve made one a week here since we’re in the month of August, since I’d say July, it’s been one every week. And we maintain that.”

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