It was a great day for a Georgia K9 officer and her handler to show off their training, as K9 Becka the bloodhound was able to track down four of five suspects involved in a stolen vehicle pursuit in just 15 minutes, and helped the police officers on the scene locate evidence.
The sheriff’s office involved was the Banks County Sheriff’s Office. It called in Corporal Josh Pressley and K9 officer Becka, a bloodhound, for help in locating five suspects who fled from a stolen vehicle pursuit on foot. Becka and Cpl Presslye did so promptly, arriving at the scene and getting to work with scent articles from the vehicle to get Becka’s nose zeroed in.
Then they got to searching, starting in the open and overgrown field adjacent to the interstate. That field is where the suspects had last been spotted running. Soon after starting, Becka found a red shoe lost by one of the suspects during the flight from the interstate. Then Becka kept searching and found the first suspect, who was missing a red shoe.
That suspect was found on the other side of an embankment near the interstate, one surrounded by dense foliage and overgrowth. A path through it, however, was clear, having been trampled down by the single-shoed suspect. That offender was done for when Becka gave a positive alert to the law enforcement officers by sitting, signaling that the scents matched.
The suspect was then taken into custody and Cpl. Presslye and Becka got back to work. Moving back toward where the other suspects had entered the field, they quickly picked up a trail that crossed the field and went into a nearby, wooded area. Bursting through the briars, Becka quickly located the second suspect, who also surrendered and was taken into custody.
The duo then got back to work, once again returned to the open field to start searching for the remaining suspects. Becka led the search team to the edge of the field, toward which she was pulling hard when the cover team found the third suspect, who was spotted in a briar patch near Becka. But that wasn’t all a second suspect was hiding there as well, buried in the briars.
The run of quick successes was over, though Becka and Cpl. Pressley got back to work and started searching yet again. Doing so, they located an orange glove and then started trailing the scent through a nearby business parking lot, then a wooded area near the interstate, then along a trail leading up to the shoulder of the interstate, at which point the search was called off due to safety concerns. The fifth suspect was later picked up on the Interstate and returned to the scene.
According to Scent Evidence K9, a group which trains K9 officers and posted about Becka’s story, this search brought Becka up to almost 20 suspect discoveries: “This is the 19th find for Cpl. Pressley and K9 Becka since completing their scent discriminate training with Scent Evidence K9.” Check out a photo of Becka and her handler here:
Franklin County Head Start/Pre-K shared more photos of Becka, from a very different event, captioning them by saying, “Corporal Zac Burnette with K-9 Bruce and Deputy Joshua Pressley with K-9 Becka from Banks County Sheriff’s Dept. came to visit Franklin County Head Start / Pre-K last week. They talked to the kids about being safe and when to call 911 if there is an emergency. They also talked to the kids about how the K-9’s jobs of being able to sniff out drugs and find missing people help the officers keep everyone safe. Thank you so much for visiting our center Corporal Burnette, Deputy Pressley, Bruce & Becka and thank you for keeping us safe!!”
Featured image credit: screengrab from the embedded Facebook post
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