“Tails” of K9: Meet Willow
Willow is a 5 1/2-year-old English Labrador Retriever. As an Electronic Scent Detection dog, she locates and sniffs out electronic storage media including hard drives, flash drives, SD cards, and cell phones. Willow has served the San Diego Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force for over three years. The SD-ICAC Task Force investigates online child pornography and online predators. Suspects often hide their child sexual abuse material on external media. Willow accompanies the task force on search warrants to locate evidence that has been hidden or overlooked.
US Federal Probation recently requested Willow’s assistance in searching the residence of a convicted child pornographer. The residence had been investigated numerous times with no success. Willow located a hidden laptop in a secret compartment that had been built into cabinetry, undetectable to the human eye. Because of this discovery, the Probation Department was able to file new charges in Federal Court and prevent more children from becoming victimized.
Willow was funded through a generous donation by K9 Champion, Mary Ann Montgomery.
Like police officers, police canines have diverse specialties and serve various units. The “Tails” of K9 series highlights K9 Crimefighters that serve SDPD and our community.