Allen Police: Behind the Badge

Sniffing Out Digital Evidence: Detective Compton & K9 Lacey

• Allen Police Department

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Detective Keith Compton introduces K9 Lacey, Allen Police Department's dual-purpose canine trained to detect hidden electronic storage devices and provide emotional support to trauma victims. Lacey's specialized skills make her one of only three electronic detection K-9s in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, capable of finding devices as small as micro SD cards that human investigators might miss.

• K-9 Lacey requires daily training with food rewards only given when she successfully detects electronic devices
• Trained to detect TPPO, a chemical compound found in 99% of electronic storage devices
• Already assisted in an FBI case where she found a hidden phone investigators had missed
• Senses handler stress and switches automatically to emotional support mode
• Works with child victims to provide comfort during difficult forensic interviews
• Selected through a competitive Secret Service program with only 12 handlers chosen from 600 applicants
• Improves morale in the Criminal Investigations Division by providing mental breaks for detectives

If you have more questions about upcoming events, check out our website allenpolice.org and follow us on our social pages. Make sure to like and subscribe, and if you have any questions, please leave them in the comments below.


Officer Sam Rippamonti:

Welcome back to another episode of Allen Police. Behind the Badge, we're your hosts, officer Sam Ripamanti and Alexus Birmingham.

Outreach Coordinator Alexus Birmingham:

And today our guest is Detective Keith Compton and our special guest K9 Lacey.

Officer Sam Rippamonti:

Hey, thanks for coming on. Keith, Thanks for having us All right, K9 Lacey. If I'm not mistaken, she's the only female K-9 we have in the police department.

Keith Compton:

That is correct.

Officer Sam Rippamonti:

All right, what does she?

Keith Compton:

do. She's a dual purpose canine. She her main purpose is going to be to detect electronic storage devices that are possibly hidden inside of homes, vehicles, outside, and she's also a um a therapy dog for children that are are victims of the crimes that we encounter.

Outreach Coordinator Alexus Birmingham:

When did you get Lacey? I know she's pretty new to our department.

Keith Compton:

We started the first Sunday in January.

Outreach Coordinator Alexus Birmingham:

Wow.

Keith Compton:

So we trained together at the National Computer Forensic Institute, which is the Secret Services training facility in Hoover, alabama, and we were together for two straight weeks, every day, every moment of the day.

Outreach Coordinator Alexus Birmingham:

When did they start training her? Did she start training as a puppy?

Keith Compton:

So she started her training six months ago for electronic storage detection and it's by a company that the Secret Service contracted with, jordan Canine Detection, and he was our master trainer that basically trained us on her. The canines we got were. They're good to go, they're trained, they know what they're doing. It's on us to figure out how to work with them. So we have to build our level up to theirs, which is just constant training all the time so we can work together as a team.

Outreach Coordinator Alexus Birmingham:

How often do you train with her?

Keith Compton:

Every day. So she is what we consider food reward, and so the only time she does eat is whenever she's detecting electronic devices. And so three to four times a day we will have a room that we get, or possibly hallway outside, and we just put electronic devices. I'll have them put in there by other people so they can hide them from me, so I don't even know where they're at. So when we walk in there we, you know, we go to work, and whenever she detects on electronic device she gets rewarded for it.

Officer Sam Rippamonti:

I'm assuming that's what triggers her to know it's time to go to work.

Keith Compton:

When you put the food belt on, yeah, when she sees the food pouch come on, that's her first indicator and she starts getting excited. She knows we're going somewhere to do something. And then, when we get there, there are commands that I'll give her, and it's putting her into that mode. I don't want to say the commands right now because she might start getting excited For those who can't see.

Officer Sam Rippamonti:

she's nice and calm right now taking a nap.

Keith Compton:

She hasn't been calm all morning. So right now we work this morning outside in front of the police department and I had probably about five mobile devices that I scattered throughout the area. So our goal when we get to an outdoor area is to get downwind of that scent. So our goal when we get to an outdoor area is to get downwind of that scent. So she's trained to detect the scent that is on about 99% of electronic storage devices tablets, hard drives, cell phones. It's a heat resistant shield and it has a long chemical name but we go by TPPO, so that is what she is trained to detect on.

Keith Compton:

So when we're outside and we're downwind, she definitely gets that odor and she will just go. And that's usually when I use a retractable leash that's about 30 feet long, because she is high drive, so she's going towards those devices and when she locates she'll show it to me and a lot of times she'll tap it with her paw and then she gets rewarded on those things. Oh, she gets excited, gets excited. So this morning we worked and this is what happens to her after we work, because her working like that and that drive being up, she'll stay on the drive for probably 15 minutes after we're working. It's the equivalent of us running a 5K. So whenever she's done and she's calmed down, she'll sleep and recover.

Outreach Coordinator Alexus Birmingham:

It's pretty interesting to see how she turns it on and off. She's in a room around cameras and electronics and she's super calm.

Keith Compton:

She's not in work mode right now. Yeah, Pretty neat. Yeah, If I put her in work mode she would go crazy in here.

Outreach Coordinator Alexus Birmingham:

Yeah, do you have any interesting stories that you can share with us?

Keith Compton:

We have one. So far we've gone out on three search warrants. Our job mainly on search warrants is to come in once an initial search has been done for electronic devices and see if maybe we've missed something. If the investigators have missed something, it's our job to try to find something. So last week we helped the FBI with a search warrant. It was a dark web narcotics case and they did their initial and secondary searches and then we came in.

Keith Compton:

In the first room we came in there were electronic devices that they had found and their instructor just leave them there. She's going to come in, she's going to detect on those devices and she gets rewarded for those. But there was one particular area of the room that she was very focused on. There was a closet next to the bed and there were a pile of clothes at the bottom. Well, she's got several different indicators for me to let me know.

Keith Compton:

She's onto the odor, um, one of those being she's diving that nose into that area and then she does what's called a blowout with her nose. It'll just blow out, and so that's what I'm listening for, and so at that point I have a uh, fbi agent with me and I'm like hey, focus in that area. She's really interested in that. So we went upstairs to run a couple of other rooms and when I came back downstairs they let me know that, hey, we found a phone in there and that's the phone they were looking for. That's wild. We were able to help them out, so we may have missed it if we didn't have her.

Officer Sam Rippamonti:

That's pretty awesome. So so do you get that real excited high pitch voice when she does something good? Oh, like that Absolutely.

Keith Compton:

Oh yeah, training is a little different. I have to work on that. But when she does it in the field, oh yeah I get real excited. It's fun to see, I got to see this. So I mean you're also. I mean you're looking at the pressure. You know it's different going out with our detectives from the CAC, but now you that are out there and TFOs that are with them, so it's a little nervous. But it's like whenever you see that she has found something that they missed, oh it's awesome. I mean it's cool.

Outreach Coordinator Alexus Birmingham:

Yeah, you did mention she was an emotional support dog as well. I know that she can detect when you're on these search warrants or when you're doing this and you get stressed. Can she sense that as well, because I feel like you've told me. Can she sense that as well? Or how do? Because I I feel like you told me a story.

Keith Compton:

It's yes so day one they told us that your emotions and feelings go down the leash. If you're having a bad day, they're gonna know it. So they're not gonna work that day because they're only focused. That point is hey, the person I'm bonded with over here is is having issues, whatever it may be. So she almost just goes into that mode, to where she's like, hey, I need to make him better before I can work.

Keith Compton:

And I didn't see it. You know, for a few days We'd had three really good days of training. I mean, she was on point, she was finding everything, and then we did vehicle searches and, mind you, this is the first time that Homeland Security and Secret Services put this program on, and Every day we had people filming us and we had agents out there taking pictures because you know, this is a big thing for them, and so there's a lot of pressure that goes into that. Well, for her to get under a vehicle to start looking for, say, an air tag or a tracker or anything else that's under there, I've got to get down there to to let her know hey, it's OK, you know, you're good, I'm with you, we're going to be safe when she has that trust and she'll dig, you know, further into there.

Keith Compton:

On this day I'm trying to get up under there and I'm stressed. And I didn't realize it she did because all she wanted to do is is jump on top of me and start licking me. My food pouch is open. I got food everywhere and it's just like it's just not working. But she knew that, she knew I was stressed and so she's like, hey, we're not working right now, let's just get you better. So I came up from underneath the car and one of the secret service agents was there and he's like, yep, that's on video. I was like awesome.

Keith Compton:

So but yeah, they, they definitely can. They, they can, they can sense when someone's, you know, stressed out about something or, you know, scared. So her purpose is say that we're doing a forensic interview on a child that's been a victim of, you know, one of these crimes. We can bring her in and, you know, try to let her calm that child down to get through that very difficult interview for them. Also, if we're on a search warrant that you know, possibly we have kids there and they're not understanding why a bunch of police officers are in there and they're scared, I can bring her in, let you know, let her just go with them and just calm them down as well, so she's able to do both of those.

Outreach Coordinator Alexus Birmingham:

Well, that's great.

Officer Sam Rippamonti:

That's awesome, and I'm sure the foot traffic in your office has tripled volume since January.

Keith Compton:

Yes, she gets many visitors a day and every time someone comes in she's got a little tug of war toy. She'll bring it to you and it's time.

Officer Sam Rippamonti:

She's like let's play. We've had some tug of war in the last week or two. She's a strong girl. Yes, she is. But I could see you know you talk about the peer support side. I could see you know if our officers are having a rough day and they come by and you know, come see Lacey and that could help out out and you know, oh, I've relaxed.

Keith Compton:

I've seen the difference in just the three weeks we've been back. Um, sometimes she's, so she had to get used to our place first. So the first week she was kind of on a leash because people would come in if she gets startled. You know she like barks she's not normally a barker, but she gets startled and so after about a week she started getting used to the place, the people, and so now she's kind of venturing out a little bit more and I mean it's, it's good for our detectives. She goes out and you know she'll bring the tug of war and it's like they'll play tug of war for 10, 15 minutes. That's 10, 15 minutes. The detectives can get away from what they're doing and just relax for a sec, take a break, mental break, yeah, and you can see that that the morale in CID has gone up. That's awesome. I've become the forgotten one.

Officer Sam Rippamonti:

It's like look, it's Lacey, never me, and the guy that walks her and the guy that walks her.

Outreach Coordinator Alexus Birmingham:

Does she go home with you every day?

Officer Sam Rippamonti:

Yes, yes, she lives in the house. Yes, absolutely Not an outside dog.

Keith Compton:

No, she's not. She's a princess. She likes playing outdoors, but no, when, when it's bedtime, she's curled up on a couch and she's like I'm out, that's awesome.

Officer Sam Rippamonti:

How does she do with throw pillows?

Keith Compton:

Well, it was good until this week. And then she I left the house I'm trying to trust her a little more and more and I left her for an hour to go to the grocery store and I came back and a nice decorative pillow was ripped apart and she just had the most guilty look on her face. She knew she was in trouble. Yeah, as a matter of fact, I think she was trying to go for one of these pillows before we started today I was like no, we can't do that.

Officer Sam Rippamonti:

Got a thing for throw pillows, yes, so moving forward, what's the future look like for Lacey? Like getting her involved in more of these warrants?

Keith Compton:

and different type of calls. We did a first of all with our current investigators assigned to the CAC. There's four of them. They're going to keep us busy, which is good. We need the real world reps on those. But I also went down to the FBI office in Frisco yesterday. We have a task force officer down there and they were very interested in seeing her work. So I went down there and we did a demo with them and they have a couple of individuals, a couple of agents that are assigned to ICAC task force, which is crimes against children, and they were asking hey, would she be available to come out on warrants? And I said absolutely. I said the more warrants you can give us, the better, because the more we can get out there and work like that and not a training environment, it's going to help us in the long run.

Outreach Coordinator Alexus Birmingham:

Are there many canines like Lacey out there?

Keith Compton:

So the company that did this, todd Jordan. He's got, I think, approximately 185 worldwide. I believe she is number 175. She's only the third one in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.

Officer Sam Rippamonti:

So there's only three in this area.

Keith Compton:

So if I demand for her, yes, absolutely Until recently there had only been one. Dallas PD has a canine that's ESD, and the Collin County Sheriff's Office got one shortly before I left. So now there's three of us in this area. Y'all do joint work. We haven't yet, just because we're still trying to get our situation settled in. But the great thing about that is the Dallas PD dog and the Collin County Sheriff's Office dog all come from the same trainer, so when we get together we're trained the same way. That's good, doing the same thing. So that definitely is going to be a help.

Officer Sam Rippamonti:

And the temperament of this breed, they probably all get along fine.

Keith Compton:

We had all labs in our, our class. There were 12 of us and, yeah, at the beginning of the morning they all went to play with each other and they're just like, oh my god, hey, what's going on? But what we would typically do for training is we would get a hotel room, we'd get three of those and people had checked out and we'd hit different ones each day. Well, they're hiding devices in there for us to go up and run those. You know, know those rooms, and so we would, you know, go to a room, work that, come down, maybe rest for 15, 20 minutes, as we're all rotating through by 1130, it's, it's, you know we're. We're breaking for lunch and we're doing a debrief and you look around the room and they're all passed out. I mean, they're just all so tired from from working. So, and it was, it was just funny to see. It's like you couldn't see a dog that was even up. They were just all sleeping like this.

Officer Sam Rippamonti:

That's awesome. So you said something earlier about crawling under cars if you're looking for a tracker and you said air tag. Now, an air tag is tiny, mm-hmm, but it still has that odor, so she can smell something as small as an air tag.

Keith Compton:

She can smell something as small as a micro SD card.

Outreach Coordinator Alexus Birmingham:

Wow.

Officer Sam Rippamonti:

Oh, as an air tank, she can smell something as small as a micro SD card.

Keith Compton:

Wow, oh yeah, that's like what goes in a cell phone. Yes, she can detect on those.

Keith Compton:

So yes, so she sniffs through, like walls, like how, if the odor is strong enough to be coming towards her? Yes, she can detect it. Now there's a lot of variables that go into it. You've got more airflow than anything. So is the device here? But the way the air is coming through this room, is it pushing it to this side of the room? So she may be sensing it over here. It's not strong. So she's looking for the strongest part of that odor. So she may be sensing it over there and it's kind of confusing her. She's like I know it's got to be around here but it's not that strong. So sometimes we'll come back around, we'll work it again and if, if two times through, she's sensing something but not on it, we may work her opposite way. And I found that working her that opposite direction, that's when she'll pick up on it. So it's there's a lot of things that just go into it.

Keith Compton:

I found out real quickly our building's not great for training just because we have so many computers, hard drives and things like that. So it's finding areas that don't have all of that in there. So the biggest challenge so far has been able to reach out and figure out where we can train. So we've we've done pretty good, we've got, you know, the courts. We've been able to work. City hall's got a couple of floors, the fire departments. We're going to start working with them and just going through the different apartments. And during the summertime I've spoken with the SROs and we could definitely get in there and start working on some of those rooms. So but that's the biggest challenge for us because if we're not changing it up, then she starts to become either complacent with it or she knows where devices have been hidden in this area before. Having to learn is okay. She's really starting to use it. She's so smart that she remembers where devices are. Sometimes we're just walking the hallway. We've worked that area. She'll go to the plant where there was a USB drive in there and she's either trying to sniff on it. So that's that's.

Keith Compton:

Our biggest challenge is just to make sure we keep, you know, changing it up, and that's also part of our training. We don't feed at the same time every day. We don't, you know, we don't go to the same locations. It has to be different for her. You have to keep her, you know, ready to go at any time. And that's also, you know, towards search warrants. We don't know exactly when the search warrant's going to go or when we're going to get brought in. So I don't, you know, can't get her fixated on. Hey, it's around 830. I usually get fed around now because then you can start falling into false alerts and things like that. So we just keep it different every day with her.

Outreach Coordinator Alexus Birmingham:

So how did you get the opportunity to become a canine handler?

Keith Compton:

Well, this goes all the way back to being a digital forensic examiner full time. I started digital forensics back in 2012 when I was in narcotics, and that just consisted basically of very small devices, mobile devices. We didn't even need search warrants then. So as a narcotic investigator, we would do a search warrant and the rest of the investigators are doing the search and interviews. I'm over there with what it's a Cellbrite, ufed Touch One and I'm hooking this into a thumb drive and I'm just taking the call logs and text messages from these devices, from these devices. Fast forward to four years ago when I finally became a full-time digital forensic examiner.

Keith Compton:

I've been going to NCFI for probably eight, nine years now and the reason we continue to go down there is the courses that are offered by Secret Service are completely paid for. The per diem, the travel, the hotel, everything is paid for by them, and in some of the intermediate and advanced classes in forensics, we're actually returning with a lot of equipment. Some classes we're bringing $30,000, $40,000 worth of equipment back, and that equipment is laptops. It could be equipment to fix a device, a mobile device, or to basically you know we used to call it a JTAG chip off of a device if we couldn't get the passcode. So we're getting all of that training. Well, for years they've been wanting to implement an ESD canine program. So finally this, this last year, they were able to get it approved by Homeland Security and Secret Service and we were the first class to get to go do it. Since and as a matter of fact it was it was curious the question got asked on, like the last day how were we chosen? There were 12 of us total and I believe there were 600 applicants. So the question was asked how were we chosen to be handlers?

Keith Compton:

And the, the training coordinator, her name's Anna Holloway. She's a agent down there. She said these are my biggest producers as far as we enter our any, any device we touch mobile devices, computers, whatever it may be. If we process it, we enter that into um, a system called FPR, and that's the stats that the Secret Service uses to go to Congress to get their budget. So they look at that. When determining whether we get some of these more advanced classes is are you producing, are you taking the knowledge we're giving you and using it in your field? And so the 12 of us, we're some of the biggest producers and we're some of the most dependent ones, because we've never had any issues taking any of those courses down there. We're always engaged, we're always just willing to learn, so that's how she chose us.

Outreach Coordinator Alexus Birmingham:

So every dog that was there? Were they like electronic and also emotional support, or was it just no?

Keith Compton:

that's. That's how Todd Jordan trains his canines is. So her story and most of the stories from from the canines is they didn't start out with Todd Jordan learning electronic Mm-hmm, a nonprofit that, basically, obedient, trains canines to work with kids with disabilities. Well, her drive is so high that they saw that that probably may not be a good fit for that. So then Todd Jordan the trainer, he gets her and he sees that you know her drive is perfect for what she's doing now it's. This is just what she's meant to do and sometimes, you know dogs have to. You know they have a purpose. We just have to find out what purpose it is for them and she absolutely loves this. I mean, when she's ready, when we go to work, she is excited and she just loves it. I mean it's a challenge for her.

Officer Sam Rippamonti:

And she loves it. But your daily steps have gone through. Oh my goodness.

Keith Compton:

I've climbed those stairs more times in the last three weeks than I have my entire career.

Outreach Coordinator Alexus Birmingham:

Do you guys visit the schools? Have you taken her? Not yet.

Keith Compton:

So this is all you know. We're progressing with this. We've done a few demos for people. We're getting the word out that you know this is who we are, this is what we can do, but I've also got to balance.

Keith Compton:

What my full-time job is is a digital forensic examiner. My full-time job is is a digital forensic examiner, and when I say that it's myself and one other individual, detective Forcan. We are full-time examiners. Last year we processed over 450 devices, so that in and of itself, is a full-time job. So this is finding the balance between that and using her. But she's so valuable as a tool for us in the you know, crimes against children world that I couldn't pass that opportunity up. I mean, we we have enough cases that she is definitely going to do some good for us and it's it's valuable, and so I'm willing to make the sacrifice and try to figure out how to balance them. I will. When I was in narcotics, I was carrying 280 cases a year and I was processing over 250 devices a year, so it's a lot of work, but at the same time, they were both important to me, so I'll find out a way to make this work as well.

Officer Sam Rippamonti:

You definitely found your passion. Yes, Cause this you know. When you first started the cell phone thing, being able to get into these devices, I remember it just kind of started growing and all these agencies started reaching out Cause I'm. Yes, Detective Compton is the best he can do it. I don't know if I'm the best.

Outreach Coordinator Alexus Birmingham:

I'm just proficient.

Keith Compton:

No, I enjoy helping other agencies out. I mean, I was on SWAT for 15 years. I was on narcotics for 10 years. That was fun, I loved it, it was great. But this transition's been nice. It really has. There's nothing better than going to court and testifying on what's on someone's device. When it was passcode protected, they're like how did they get that information? I mean, it's just the look in their eyes like I can't believe Apple says this thing. You can't break into it. Well, we have our ways. But that's fun. It's fun to see it.

Officer Sam Rippamonti:

I've known you for a long time. Yes, you know, 18 years. This May is how long I've known you and to see how you've changed from when I started here in 07, he was the guy. If I saw him in the hallway I was. He was intimidating because he just always had this look on his face. I was not intimidating, don't talk to me, I, he had this look on his face.

Officer Sam Rippamonti:

It's not intimidating. Don't talk to me. I was not like that. Not Compton. Now see, I don't know if it's you. This is the sweetest guy ever. Thank you, oh, come on, you didn't know early on. Compton, no, he's a really nice guy. He just had the look and I was the young guy you know, so stayed in my lane, but now he has something to do with it too. Oh, definitely, he is a whole different person. He's the happiest I've ever seen him. He's smiling all the time and it seems like you really enjoy what you're doing. Oh, absolutely.

Keith Compton:

Absolutely. She makes it easy.

Officer Sam Rippamonti:

She does, so how is she with Mrs Compton?

Keith Compton:

That was an adjustment. It's like having a baby itself. So I drove to NCFI for this and the day we left we drove back. It was about 10 hours because we had to stop a few more times and I've told her how great she is and how obedient she is, and I mean I'm just propping her up. As soon as we got in the house the zoomies hit her and she went crazy. No command I would give her would make her stop. I just had to let it out and she just looked at me. It was like, really, this is that well-trained dog.

Keith Compton:

I was like she is. You just have to see it. She's just excited, so now it's been an adjustment, but she loves her yeah, yeah and uh.

Officer Sam Rippamonti:

So you have a partner at work. You mentioned him earlier, sean.

Keith Compton:

He's kind of ocd kind of yeah, a little bit, let's touch.

Officer Sam Rippamonti:

If you're listening, sean, I mean I thought I was.

Keith Compton:

OCD until I met him, which is good. I mean, our office is squared away. It's always organized, a little over-organized from time to time.

Officer Sam Rippamonti:

But yeah, how's he doing with the shedding? He's got better A little bit yeah.

Keith Compton:

So I mean we try to make it as clean as possible in there, because we do have a lot of expensive forensic equipment. Who runs the vacuum? I do? I figured yeah. But yeah, we keep it as clean as possible because I mean we don't want our very expensive forensic workstations to get cluttered up.

Officer Sam Rippamonti:

I mean Y'all's office is very neat and clean. Yes, so we're constantly cleaning. It's like a gamer's paradise in there. It really is. It's like a gamer's paradise in there. There's computers everywhere, big monitors.

Keith Compton:

Oh yeah, we have fun with it.

Outreach Coordinator Alexus Birmingham:

How does she benefit the city of Allen?

Keith Compton:

How she benefits. The city of Allen, like I said, is going to be working with our investigators at the CAC. The cases that they investigate are tough, they really are, and between one us possibly finding evidence that's going to put someone that's really bad away for a long time is valuable. And also they're to support these kids, because I think a lot of times that gets that doesn't get noticed enough that this is going to affect this person for the rest of their life, absolutely. I mean that's. There are a lot of victims of a lot of the crimes we investigate, but this is the one true one that will affect someone for the rest of their life. And if we can be a positive influence at any point during our interaction with them, whether it's during the investigation, the interview, whatever it may be, then that means everything, because they may not have a lot of positive things to look forward to immediately because you know they're they're trying to get through a very traumatic experience. But if we can be positive at any point, then that's worth it.

Outreach Coordinator Alexus Birmingham:

I think she's also very great for not only our community but in Allen, but we're also able to work with other agencies and help out our partnering cities. You know as well and it's very beneficial.

Keith Compton:

Absolutely. My goal in digital forensics was if I can help you, I will. If I've got access to something that you don't and it's going to help you build your case, then bring it over. We're all on one team, that's the thing. It doesn't matter what agency we're with. If I can help you out with your case, then let's help you. It's going to be the same with her. I'm starting to get the word out to other agencies, because there are other agencies that have investigators with the CAC or investigating child crime cases. If we can help you out in any way, let us, if that's to, come over and let someone you know pet her and get through a very tough interview, then I'll do that. If you need help finding devices, hey, we'll give it a try. But I mean, we're all on the same team. We want to put bad people away. Bad people do not need to be in our society. So if we can help you do that, let me know.

Outreach Coordinator Alexus Birmingham:

So is there a difference between a service dog or an emotional support dog?

Keith Compton:

No, her first role is going to be a service canine. Okay, she's no different than a narcotics canine, except her purpose is different. So no, they're actually considered service canines. That's why she wears her little badge, her temporary, until we get her real badge.

Outreach Coordinator Alexus Birmingham:

So does she get a badge number? She already has one.

Keith Compton:

Oh, okay, so she's a member of the Allen Police Department. So I mean, like I said, she's the same as a narcotic canine, except our purpose is different. We're lovable. We're not apprehension dogs. So with her, I mean, she loves to be pet, a lot of you know, like narcotic canines, you're not supposed to pet those or any type of. Anyone wants to touch any of the any of the other type dogs. I mean, they're just, they're trained different. You know, they have a different purpose and they're good at what they're trained to do with us. We're we're meant to be lovable. So that is a question I get a lot of times is hey, can I pet her? Oh, absolutely, we're working on the please stop jumping up on people game. So, but we'll, we'll get there. Now. She just gets excited, she's, she's 14 months old, she's.

Officer Sam Rippamonti:

So if people see you out in the public, they they definitely always should ask before in case you aren't working here.

Keith Compton:

So but yeah, I mean it. They always everyone asks and I appreciate that but yeah, she's there to be loved on.

Officer Sam Rippamonti:

She does not lack that at all. Very cool. Well, lacey is awesome, even though she's ignored us this entire podcast. No, she worked this morning. She's got a ticket. She gets to sleep on the job.

Keith Compton:

Hey, don't say that too loud.

Officer Sam Rippamonti:

So we really appreciate you coming on. We'll have you back another day. Maybe we can talk more deep, dive into more what you do when you're not working, Lacey.

Keith Compton:

Okay.

Officer Sam Rippamonti:

We'll save that for another day. Thank you all for listening and watching. If you have more questions about upcoming events, check out our website allenpoliceorg and follow us on our social pages.

Outreach Coordinator Alexus Birmingham:

And make sure to like and subscribe. And if you have any questions, please leave them in the comments down below.

Officer Sam Rippamonti:

See you next time.