Racine County police K-9 helps catch predators by sniffing out child porn
MILWAUKEE (CBS 58) -- A Milwaukee County circuit judge faces child porn charges, and one special deputy assisted in the case -- a porn-sniffing dog out of Racine County.
Wisconsin has three canines trained to sniff out child porn.
The Racine County Sheriff's Office confirms theirs was on the case that put Judge Blomme behind bars.
With positive reinforcement, this 3-year-old English lab has gotten good at finding needles in haystacks.
“For us to go into a three, four bedroom house and try to find something as small as a micro SD card, it takes a lot of time and a lot of work. That’s where Karma can come in,” said Racine County Sheriff’s Investigator Jon Bechman.
Karma's trained to pick up a scent called TPPO, a chemical that keeps electronics like cellphones, laptops and flash drives from overheating.
Since January, she's been called to the Racine County Correctional Center four times.
“And they have a lot of people smuggling in phones, so we go in with Karma and we just found a phone two weeks ago, which is good because it’s a safety issue for them,” said Investigator Bechman.
Three years into the job, Karma and her handler have a great relationship at work and at play.
This year, Karma's already been on nine cases, resulting in charges for eight.
Karma's best find was in a toolbox.
“And there was a little metal robot with springy arms and springy legs stuck on the side of the ropes, stuck on side of the toolbox and I took it off and I was looking at it and put it down by her and she hit it again, and I popped the head off and it was actually a thumb drive,” said Investigator Bechman.
Karma’s brother Kozak is one of the other two canines in the state trained to find where predators are hiding their child porn.