OXFORD (WWJ) – Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel is turning to trained firearm-detecting dogs to help keep schools safe.
More than six months after the deadly school shooting last fall, Nessel has extended an offer to the Oxford Community School District to provide a handler and dog from Elite Detection K9.
Elite Detection K9 is a non-profit organization that breeds and trains dogs for the specific purpose of explosives and firearms detection. The organization works with Avondale High School, with dogs sweeping for potentially dangerous materials.
But their program goes beyond just sniffing out danger. The dogs are also able to receive attention and affection from the student body in the course of performing their duty.
Nessel on Monday wrote a letter to Oxford officials, offering to bring the dog to the school for the 2022-23 school year at no cost to the district.
Speaking live with WWJ’s Erin Vee Tuesday night, Elite Detection K9 CEO Greg Guidice says his program is effective for a number of reasons.
“One, they’re mobile. They can go anywhere, so they can search students as they’re coming through in the morning, their backpacks, they can search lockers, they can go to the gymnasium, they can do cars in the parking lot and the perimeter of the building,” Guidice said.
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“The other really huge benefit is, canines can smell what we as humans can’t,” he said. “An analogy is, we as humans can smell a teaspoon of sugar in a cup of coffee. These canines can smell that same teaspoon of sugar in the water that fills two Olympic-size pools.”
He says the dogs, unlike many trained K9 dogs in most situations, are available to students and teachers “to just be a dog” when they’re not working. That includes being available for comfort and emotional support.
Also in Nessel’s letter, she renewed her offer to conduct a private investigation of the Nov. 30, 2021 shooting that claimed the lives of four students and injured seven other people inside the school.
“It is my sincere hope that the board will consider my offer to provide a dog from Elite Detection K9 to the Oxford High School for the next school year, and that you will reconsider your rejection of my offer to perform a review of the circumstances leading up to the events of November 30, 2021,” her letter said. “As I stated before, the costs of the investigation will be borne solely by my office and the investigation will be conducted in such a manner as not to interfere with the ongoing criminal proceedings being handled by the Oakland County Prosecutor’s Office.”
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