Police canines sniff out arson and explosives in Myrtle Beach area

More than two dozen police officers along the Grand Strand take their work partners home with them every day.

The officers are K-9 handlers, and their partners detect drugs, fleeing suspects, explosives and arson accelerants as part of their duties with police and fire departments in Georgetown and Horry counties and Brunswick County, N.C.

A 17-month-old German shepherd named Bizi is the newest member to area K-9 units, officially becoming Horry County Police Department's explosive detection and tracking dog earlier this month.

She's the department's first bomb-sniffer, but not the first one in the area: Myrtle Beach police and the Brunswick County, N.C., Sheriff's Office also have a bomb dog among their ranks.

Bizi's handler, Jeff Hamilton, leader of Horry County Police Department Bomb Squad, said he and the dog, which was born in Holland, recently completed a five-week training course in explosive detection and tracking. Bizi is Hamilton's first canine partner.

"She really has expanded the capabilities of the department. She really enhances our capabilities as a bomb squad," he said. "It's a lot more work than I thought it would be. These guys always look so relaxed. I've learned the more relaxed you are, the more the dog relaxes and the better you work."

Previously, bomb squad members routinely responded to suspicious packages, but with Bizi's help they can also respond to bomb threats. Hamilton said he and Bizi train weekly so her sensitive nose stays up-to-date on explosive odors.

"She has a lot more odors to detect than others and a lot more to work on, so we do more detection than the narcotics [teams] do," Hamilton said.

James Cyganiewicz, Horry County's deputy fire investigator, understands, because he's constantly training with his partner, Navy, an arson dog.

The duo trains daily because Navy's reward is food. Cyganiewicz must keep track of his training to ensure he receives at least four cups of food, donated by Coastline Pet Supply, each day.

Cyganiewicz gets samples of typical chemicals used in arsons from Coastal Carolina University to train Navy. Since September 2007, when they graduated from the Maine Criminal Justice Academy after six weeks of training, Cyganiewicz said they have worked on about 160 fires in the county, as well as assisting other agencies in the area.

A grant from State Farm Insurance allowed Navy to become part of the county department, and she is the only such dog funded through the program in the state.

"Navy is another tool out of our tool box to assist us in determining the cause and origin of fires," Cyganiewicz said. Navy can sniff the accelerants that indicate a fire was started on purpose.

Horry County Fire Rescue Chief Garry Alderman said his department inquired six years ago about getting an arson dog to assist in cases because the State Law Enforcement Division was the only other agency at the time that had a K-9 arson officer.

"It helps the investigators try and determine if it was an arson or an accidental fire. It has helped us tremendously as far as pinpointing some arsons throughout the county," he said. "The sensitivity of their noses is just unbelievable. If we didn't have a dog, you'd have to go in there with a piece of instrumentation, and it would probably take you five times longer."

At the Horry County Police Department, the dogs all have kennels in their handlers' offices. The officers also drive specially equipped vehicles to carry their partners.

The equipment and dogs are mostly funded through drug-asset seizures, Horry County police Sgt. Craig Hutchinson said.

"We're pretty much a self-supported unit," Hutchinson said. "We don't cost the taxpayers anything."

Last week, Hutchinson displayed a table of seven kilos of cocaine and 140 pounds of marijuana seized because the dogs rooted them out.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled a free-air sniff by a dog detective is not an invasion of privacy rights, and the dogs have been able to make some major cases, he said.

"[K-9 officers are] one more tool to speed these things up," Hutchinson said. "We can search buildings, vehicles and airplanes faster than five or six police officers can. [Humans] can smell a cup of coffee and we smell coffee, but the dog smells the coffee, the creamer and the sugar."