In tonight’s Cape Coral city council meeting, members approved two new K-9’s for the police department.
Fox 4 spoke with both the mayor and the police chief about the new additions.
Over the summer, the Florida Hemp law went into effect legalizing the use of smokable medical marijuana.
Cape Coral police chief David Newlan says the law has changed the effectiveness of police K-9’s that do not have the ability to differentiate legal vs illegal t-h-c levels in marijuana.
“Our current dogs are trained to detect marijuana, but what they can’t do is detect what legal and what’s not,” said David Newland.
For months the Cape Coral police department has been making strides to update tactics to reflect new policies.
“We are happy this went through. We have two new K-9’s now, and it will help us to continue to get those dogs trained to address this, plus the money we were given through donations will help us fund all of their expenses,” says Newlan.
Donations totaling seven thousand dollars were made by a private citizen, and several non-profit organizations.
In a unanimous vote, the mayor says the offer was too good to pass up.
“The fact that we were donated K-9 units to work with our police department is obsoletely unbelievable,” said Joe Coviello.
With two new K-9’s coming in, the department will donate an older K-9 that is no longer responding to training to a veteran in need.
“To help a vet with a friend like that its got to be an awesome experience to have someone that they can count on,” said Coviello.
The addition of new K-9’s to the Cape Coral police department will help to foster a safer community.
The chief says they will not be trained to detect marijuana, instead, they will be used for other narcotic detection.
