CLEVELAND — The Regional Transit Authority (RTA) of Cleveland has just welcomed its newest K-9 to their police department.
Nico was sworn in this morning by RTA Police Chief Deirdre Jones and was surrounded by his handler and coworkers. The pup is just over a year and a half and will set out to help the RTA by conducting safety checks on all mass transits.
Nicos' handler Sean Mahon said the training process is about 12 weeks long and runs from Monday-Friday 6 a.m.-3 p.m.
"Nico is trained in explosive detection- we will be looking for explosives at all mass events, buses, trains, platforms stations of RTA and other mass transit areas," said Mahon.
Chief Jones says that in addition to working at the airport with TSA as bomb detection dogs, Nico and the other K-9s are available when other officers need assistance.
For example, "Avon schools called last week because they had a bomb threat at one of their schools and our officer and K-9 went out there and assisted them," said Jones.
Jones also mentioned, "what they do is ride the transit system, and provide a lot of connection to the community just by being on the trains. I think people love dogs more than they love the police, so it's actually a good experience."
There are currently eight handler teams on the department. Mahon said, "I'm looking forward to having a long career with this buddy here".
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Editor's note: The video in the player above is from a previously published, unrelated story.