New Indio police K-9 officers get their badges
The Indio Police Department has two new officers and they have four legs.
An open-invite “pinning” ceremony was held for the two K-9 officers this evening at the Elk’s Lodge. K-9 Loki and K-9 Asko, both German Shepards, received their badges after completing an extensive training program alongside their handlers.
“One of our dogs is trained in narcotics as well as firearms so he will be able to find all of those things. Another one of our dogs is both an apprehension dog as cross-trained to find narcotics and the third one at this point is just an apprehension dog,” said Indio police Chief Mike Washburn.
The dogs join veteran K-9 Mikey, a bomb-sniffing specialist, to fully staff the department’s K-9 unit.
This is the first time in several years that the Indio Police Department has had police service dog members and they could not be more excited.
“We didn’t have any dogs when I first got here. We had one that was not active so we have everyone back to work now,” Washburn said.
Washburn thanked the community for their support. crediting it as a major reason why the K-9 unit was able to be rebuilt.
“The Elk’s Club has been really great to support our K9 program since I’ve been here. A lot of support from the community, everyone loves the k9 program. We had to rebuild it,” said Washburn said.
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