00:00:01
Scott Foster: In this situation, we're going
to say that this is a vehicle that got pursued.
00:00:05
It was a stolen vehicle that had a wanted
person in it who had just robbed a store and
00:00:10
victimized somebody. Phoebe Judge: This is Corporal Scott Foster
of the Hillsborough, North Carolina, Police
00:00:15
Department. Scott Foster: In this person's wild dash to
get away, they came to this really rural type
00:00:20
area. They can't go anywhere else in the vehicle. You've got a big pond on one side and woods
all the way around.
00:00:26
The natural instinct's going be that they're
going to get out and jump and run on foot.
00:00:29
Phoebe Judge: We met him on a gigantic empty
piece of land in a town called Swepsonville.
00:00:34
And before we met, he wrote to tell us it
would probably be a good idea to wear comfortable
00:00:39
shoes. Scott Foster: So you're going to play the
part of the bad guy now. And you're actually going to run on foot.
00:00:44
Phoebe Judge: Lauren, who produces the show,
took off running into the woods and hid.
00:00:48
Scott Foster: I'm going to grab Vader and
come back here and you can play the part as
00:00:51
my cover officer, as we enter in these woods
and actually locate her. Phoebe Judge: It was like a high-stakes game
of hide-and-go-seek in these huge dense woods.
00:01:00
But all the looking was being done by a $12,000
German shepherd from Slovakia. So he just smelled —
Scott Foster: He smelled the scent article.
00:01:10
Phoebe Judge: The gauze that Lauren was wearing. Scott Foster: That's to indicate to him that
that is the odor that we're going to be following.
00:01:16
Phoebe Judge: So in real life, officers will
often rub the seat of the driver's car with
00:01:21
a piece of gauze to transfer the suspect's
smell. Scott Foster: I'll introduce it to him one
more time.
00:01:25
And then we will be off and ready to go. Phoebe Judge: When Vader tracks someone, he
wears a special dog vest that signals to him
00:01:33
that it's time to go tracking. The minute the vest was on, Vader got to work. His nose was glued to the ground, and I was
running after him with a recorder.
00:01:43
And this is, it's kind of fast. Scott Foster: It is fast. Phoebe Judge: I mean, we're not just strolling
here.
00:01:50
Scott Foster: No, we're not strolling. If you'll notice his body, see how his nose
is to the ground?
00:01:57
Phoebe Judge: He's not even looking up. Scott Foster: He's not even looking up. Phoebe Judge: Because his eyes don't really
matter.
00:02:03
Scott Foster: It's his nose. Exactly. In this environment, she could be anywhere.
00:02:08
Notice his pace is picking up a little bit. Phoebe Judge: [Winded.] We're trying to keep up with Vader.
00:02:17
Scott Foster: See his head coming up? See how he's looking? That indicates to me that he's actually smelling
her at this point.
00:02:26
Phoebe Judge: Within a certain distance, the
dogs don't need to track anymore. They can smell the actual hiding person and
go right to them.
00:02:33
Scott Foster: Good boy, Vader. Good boy. Lauren Spohrer: Good job! Phoebe Judge: [Breathing heavily.]
00:02:41
It's hard for me to catch up with you all. So he found her? Scott Foster: He did find her.
00:02:48
He actually came right to her. Lauren Spohrer: So from the point of view
of the person who's running, it makes me feel
00:02:54
like you, if I were a criminal —
Phoebe Judge: You're screwed. Lauren Spohrer: You're screwed.
00:02:57
There's no way. Scott Foster: There's no getting away. Yeah. And a lot of times what'll happen is, they
will initially run a short distance and hide,
00:03:05
and then they'll see us coming and they're
like, how are they finding me? And they'll run a little further, and then
they'll hide.
00:03:12
And that's when the panic sets in, and what
they don't realize is the more panic and adrenaline
00:03:16
they get off, the easier they're actually
making our job. Lauren Spohrer: The more smell.
00:03:20
Scott Foster: The more smell, exactly. The more smell. But if you could imagine that track at 3:00
in the morning in the dark, just officers
00:03:27
looking, there's no way. Phoebe Judge: We tracked Lauren about a quarter
of a mile.
00:03:31
And Vader found her in less than three minutes. Scott Foster: In the daylight and in a trained
scenario, it's fun, almost amazing to do this,
00:03:40
but it adds a whole different element when
you're hunting a known armed bad guy.
00:03:44
Because anyone with a gun could have shot
at us. So the ability to be ambushed is so great.
00:03:52
And unfortunately, here in North Carolina,
just a little over a year ago, a handler by
00:03:55
the name of Jason Crisp was tracking a domestic
violence suspect and got within about 30 yards
00:04:02
of him, and he shot and killed both the handler
and the dog with a shotgun. So it's something you have to keep in the
back of your mind.
00:04:08
But you also have to have a lot of trust in
your dog to know that you're going to be able
00:04:12
to read those behaviors and safely be able
to come out of the woods. Phoebe Judge: So when he finds someone in
the woods or is chasing somebody down, what
00:04:19
would they do? Scott Foster: Even though we look at them
as locating tools, they can be deployed for
00:04:25
compliance, but it's pain compliance. Meaning when they bite, they don't maul someone.
00:04:33
They don't tear them up. They're trained to bite and hold with a lot
of pressure.
00:04:37
And one of the things that makes them better
than any other tool we have is we can recall
00:04:41
them. If we deploy a gun or a taser or even pepper
spray, once we make that decision to deploy
00:04:47
it, there's no pulling it back. With the dogs, we can do that. That's one thing we train.
00:04:52
They're the only tool we have that we can
actually do that with. Phoebe Judge: Scott and his fellow officers
meet every week to train their dogs.
00:04:59
They're required to train at least 16 hours
each month. On the day we met up with them, there were
six human officers and six canine officers.
00:05:07
It's very interesting. All of these... We're here with not just you, but with a lot
of different people from the Sheriff's Department
00:05:13
of Alamance County. But they all have their dog's names on the
window. Scott Foster: Yeah.
00:05:18
And I think that's interesting because people,
a lot of times, think that these dogs are
00:05:24
just a piece of equipment. It always shocks me when I hear that, but
I talk to people and one of the questions
00:05:29
they always ask me is, "Does he go home with
you? Are you his only handler?" And to me, it sounds so crazy to even think
that possibly someone else could handle him,
00:05:38
but it dawned on me, the general public don't
really know that. They think that the dog could be handled by
anybody in the department.
00:05:43
And it's so far from the case. And naturally, as handlers, you get bonded
to these dogs.
00:05:49
They're like family members. So sometimes I think the names on the car
is just a spilling over of that.
00:05:56
You're proud of these dogs. You want people to know, hey, that's Britt,
that's Falco, that's Vader, that's Talon.
00:06:01
So I think that's a lot of times how that
comes in. [Dog barking.] Suspect come out to my voice.
00:06:08
Speaker 1: What? I wasn't doing nothing. Scott Foster: I have a trained police dog.
00:06:11
You need to do what I say, do it now. Speaker 1: I wasn't doing anything. Scott Foster: Suspect [inaudible].
00:06:15
Phoebe Judge: They were acting as decoy suspects
for one another, even shooting blanks to desensitize
00:06:21
the dogs to the sound of loud gunfire. Police Officer: Suspect, show me your hands.
00:06:26
[Gunshots, dogs barking.] Phoebe Judge: But we thought the wildest thing
they did was put on a huge padded suit, with
00:06:32
about two inches of padding all the way around. And the officers get bit by each other's dogs.
00:06:37
Oh my gosh. This looks like — OK. Scott Foster: Police dogs, come on up for
this.
00:06:43
Phoebe Judge: So you've got the, he's got
the whole suit on. Scott Foster: He does.
00:06:47
Phoebe Judge: How is the dog — the dog is
just going to get him wherever he wants?
00:06:50
Scott Foster: Not necessarily. We do teach our dogs to target. We have different areas we want them to target
that's going to do a minimal amount of damage.
00:06:59
Typically we like them to target inner bicep,
outer forearm, calf, or back of the thigh.
00:07:04
We try to keep them away from areas... Or triceps. We try to keep them away from anywhere where
there's nice veins and stuff, arteries and
00:07:11
stuff, that we don't want to be damaged. See his full mouth? See how deeply that's in there?
00:07:17
The force is coming from the back of his teeth. The damage is caused by the front of the teeth.
00:07:21
So we actually train that. Phoebe Judge: What's amazing about watching
the dogs bite is that once they've closed
00:07:29
their back teeth, they don't move. Even if the decoy hits them or swings them
all over the place, the dog holds steady.
00:07:36
So the dog is off the ground. He's just holding on with his mouth. Scott Foster: Yeah, exactly.
00:07:40
Phoebe Judge: The dog won't release until
he gets the command and then he stands guard.
00:07:45
So this is like the dog's working as your
partner? Scott Foster: Exactly. Phoebe Judge: Even spending half a day with
them, it's obvious that these highly trained
00:07:56
dogs can absolutely do things that a human
being never could. It also became obvious pretty quickly that
this wasn't going to be just a story about
00:08:06
how effective police dogs can be. It was about something else. Because long before Vader, Scott had a different
partner, his original partner, and now all
00:08:17
three of them live together in a sort of complicated
canine love triangle, complete with sneaking
00:08:23
around and feeling guilty. I'm Phoebe Judge. This is Criminal. Scott Foster: He's 10 years old.
00:08:36
We were paired together when he was about
16 months old. Phoebe Judge: We went to Scott's house to
meet his original partner, Talon.
00:08:43
Talon is enormous, much bigger and sturdier-seeming
than Vader. Scott Foster: Talon's really awesome.
00:08:48
I can't help but just smile every time I talk
about Talon. I'd like to say it was immediately a match
made in heaven, but that really wasn't the
00:08:55
case. He was a dominant dog and it took a lot for
us to get that bonding process down.
00:09:00
But when we finally did, we were pretty much
inseparable. Phoebe Judge: And so who is he out here with?
00:09:07
Scott Foster: That's actually my personal
dog. That's also a shepherd from Europe and her
name's Dutch.
00:09:13
I got her early on, not so much to train,
but just whenever we're off duty, I like Talon
00:09:20
to fully be able to relax. So he could have a true home life, as opposed
to just feeling like a little furry robot
00:09:27
that would go to work and work, and then come
home and just be put in a kennel. So I actually got her just to give him some
companionship and a pet-like experience whenever
00:09:36
he was off duty. Phoebe Judge: Scott's house and yard are fully
equipped to accommodate his dogs.
00:09:41
He has five in total. The two police dogs, Dutch, and then two tiny
white lap dogs that live inside.
00:09:48
Their names are Wicket and Cricket. But Talon was first. Scott Foster: One time in particular, I can
really remember very clearly, we had tracked
00:09:56
a person who had robbed a convenience store
and he had wrecked his car and ran, much like
00:10:01
the scenario we just did. And at this point, we had tracked a great
distance. I know Talon was really tired.
00:10:06
I was exhausted. We had lost our cover officers. And I think a lot of people who were assisting
had given up faith that we were going to catch
00:10:15
this guy. And I was just having conversations with Talon,
real heartfelt conversations.
00:10:20
I really wanted to catch this guy, bad. Phoebe Judge: What does a heartfelt conversation
with Talon sound like?
00:10:25
Scott Foster: "You're good enough to do this. We've done this in training. We've been in these situations before."
00:10:32
Just — not panicked, but like a father encouraging
a son in the big game. Halftime, we're down by 10 and I'm trying
to encourage him.
00:10:41
"You can come back, you can still get him." And through this conversation I was having
with him, I was referencing the bad guy as
00:10:48
“him.” I kept saying, "We'll get him. You can get him." And all of a sudden, the guy stood up.
00:10:53
He was hiding under some kudzu about 25 foot
from where we were at. And he said, "You've already got him.
00:10:59
I'm right here." That was really a proud moment, just because
everything that I was expressing to Talon
00:11:05
through telling him, "You can do this, you
can do this," he had actually already done
00:11:09
it. The guy was right there with us and that's
why we hadn't went any further. He hadn't lost him.
00:11:13
It's just that we were literally right on
top of him. Phoebe Judge: I told Scott when we arrived
that I was a little afraid of dogs.
00:11:24
Scott said he could tell that I was standing
a little stiffly, and that Talon could pick
00:11:28
up on it too. Oh my God. Hello. Scott Foster: Talon, kemne. His commands are in Czech.
00:11:36
And where that comes from is with them getting
most of their initial training up until that
00:11:40
12 to 14 months, being in Europe, it was only
natural that they trained them in those languages.
00:11:45
So when they come here, rather than trying
to change that, ideally — and I say, ideally,
00:11:50
because it don't always work — is to teach
the handler the Czech commands. So I probably speak more of a Southern Czech.
00:11:55
If anybody's listening to this, they might
not even understand what I'm saying, but he
00:11:58
fully understands it. And an added benefit is it also allows us
to give them commands on the street without
00:12:04
people, especially bad guys, knowing exactly
what we're telling them. Phoebe Judge: So could you demonstrate some
of your Czech?
00:12:09
Scott Foster: My Southern Czech. Talon, kemne. Good boy. Sedni. Stuj. Stuj. Pozor.
00:12:18
Pozor. [Talon barks.] Pozor. Pozor. Phoebe Judge: So Talon, who Lauren had been
playing with the whole time, suddenly sat
00:12:27
right at her feet, looked her straight in
the eyes, and barked — a lot — just because
00:12:32
Scott had told him to. Scott Foster: And so basically what that was,
if you'll notice, he was rather unnervingly
00:12:37
keying up on Lauren. I had him do it instead of at you, Phoebe,
for a reason. I was afraid Phoebe may
drop the mic and take off, take off running,
00:12:45
but it's just because it's a trained response. Talon, kemne. Sedni. OK. Now you can see just his personality completely
changes, to where he goes more of that neutral
00:12:55
type. "You can pet me. It's OK. If you don't, it's OK also, but I'm not mad
at you after the last command that my daddy
00:13:02
gave you. It's just because he was telling me what to
do." Phoebe Judge: After eight years with the Hillsborough
Police Department, Talon had to retire from
00:13:09
service early, after he got hurt when he and
Scott were tracking a suspect and Talon followed
00:13:14
his nose right into an attic. Scott Foster: As you all know, when you walk
in an attic, you have to walk on the ceiling
00:13:20
joist, or you fall through. Talon wasn't able to be that reasonable and
fell through the ceiling and actually hurt
00:13:29
his leg. He was OK for a while, but then arthritis
started showing. And even if you'll notice today, he's got
a little limp in that front leg.
00:13:37
So we had to retire him early. Phoebe Judge: The town of Hillsborough held
a retirement ceremony for Talon in January
00:13:42
of this year, where he was presented with
a plaque and a bone. And then Talon was officially given to Scott
by the town.
00:13:49
Scott Foster: He wasn't just "Talon the dog." He was K-9 Officer Talon. He interacted with people.
00:13:56
And he was so successful over the course of
his career that I think the initial thought
00:14:01
was: how's another dog even going to come
close to replacing Talon, because he was so
00:14:06
good? And then came Vader. Phoebe Judge: Vader officially began his work
as Talon's replacement in September.
00:14:16
Talon stays home now. He has his pal Dutch to keep him company. But even she's impressed by the new guy.
00:14:21
Scott Foster: For so long, I think she looked
at Talon truly as an alpha, but then here
00:14:26
comes Vader, this new young, strong, energetic
dog. It's interesting to maybe see and wonder where
her true loyalty lies now.
00:14:33
Phoebe Judge: Oh, that's kind of sad. Scott Foster: It is kind of sad. Sometimes I feel like Vader took Talon's job
and his woman all in one quick swoop.
00:14:42
Phoebe Judge: Have Talon and Vader ever met
each other? Scott Foster: They have.
00:14:48
If you'll notice, Vader's got a scar on his
nose and Talon does too. That was the result of them actually meeting
each other.
00:14:54
Phoebe Judge: They went crazy? Scott Foster: Yeah, exactly. They immediately fall...
00:14:58
I tried to integrate them early on, where
I would crate them near each other, and I
00:15:02
tried to do all the different things like
they say, when you enter a new dog to the
00:15:05
family. But the problem is those type recommendations
aren't for police working dogs.
00:15:10
It may work with some dogs, but these dogs
are such high alpha males and they think that
00:15:17
they are absolutely at the top. For another dog who equally thinks that, the
challenge, it's just always just going to
00:15:23
be a fight. Phoebe Judge: I bet you complicate things
too. Scott Foster: I do. Yeah.
00:15:28
I actually do complicate things a great deal. Phoebe Judge: Because they both want you to
like them the best.
00:15:31
Scott Foster: Exactly. And for so long, I was truly the super alpha
to both of them.
00:15:37
That when the two get together, I'm almost
torn a bit. So it works out best just to keep them completely
separated.
00:15:43
I think eventually I could probably put them
together, but I think what that would require
00:15:48
would be Talon taking a step down. And I just really hate to do that to him. Phoebe Judge: Can you imagine if Talon saw
Vader and you drive away in the police car?
00:15:57
Scott Foster: It would have to be heartbreaking. And that's why I go to such extent with the
different kennels and the different parts
00:16:02
of my yard, just to make sure it doesn't happen. So, it may be silly to a certain point that
I'm putting human emotions on an animal that
00:16:11
might not feel it, but I don't want him to
see Vader, in equipment that he would recognize
00:16:17
and me in a uniform that he would recognize,
leaving in what at one time was his car.
00:16:21
Phoebe Judge: And in terms of keeping them
separate, I mean, it's like you're living
00:16:26
these two lives, like you're cheating on Talon
with Vader. Scott Foster: Yeah, it's funny you should
say that because there has been different
00:16:32
times that it has happened where I've slipped
up and one's potentially seen me with the
00:16:36
other one. It's that very feeling, like you've just described. It's almost like, oops, I got caught, kind
of thing.
00:16:43
But honestly, I think it's worth it. They put so much into protecting me, serving
the community.
00:16:50
And I just really feel that I owe it to them
to try to do everything I can — and especially
00:16:55
Talon, to let him hold onto that dignity that
he had for so long. Phoebe Judge: Scott just put his house on
the market.
00:17:13
He says he doesn't think his place has enough
room for all the dogs, which seems a little
00:17:17
wild because it actually looks like a dog
paradise. But Scott says until maybe one day when Talon
and Vader can be together, he wants to make
00:17:27
sure they both have enough room so neither
one feels like they're getting the bum deal.
00:17:34
[Music swells.] If you'd like to see a video of me wearing
that nutty padded suit and being attacked
00:17:43
by a police dog, go to our website, thisiscriminal.com. Criminal is produced by Lauren Spohrer and
me.
00:17:51
Audio engineering help from Rob Byers. Special thanks to everyone at the Hillsborough
Police Department and Alamance County Sheriff's
00:17:58
office. Julienne Alexander makes our illustrations. You can see them on our website and our new
Instagram, Criminal_Podcast.
00:18:07
Criminal is recorded in the studios of North
Carolina Public Radio, WUNC. And we're a proud member of Radiotopia from
PRX, a collective of the 13 best podcasts
00:18:17
around. Shows like Love + Radio. On their latest, Timothy Wyllie died and then
his story began.
00:18:24
In the remote high deserts of New Mexico,
a door opens to the world beyond and the world
00:18:29
within. Speaker 2: For instance, a schizophrenic,
as long as he can handle it, as long as he
00:18:35
can get on with life, just manage. I mean, he's just got a different perception.
00:18:42
You can call it schizophrenia if you want,
but the fact that you might hear voices, I
00:18:46
hear voices. [Inaudible.] Half my life, I've heard voices. They give me good advice.
00:18:52
Phoebe Judge: Go listen. Radiotopia from PRX is supported by the Knight
Foundation and MailChimp, celebrating creativity,
00:18:59
chaos, and teamwork. I'm Phoebe Judge. This is Criminal. Jingle: Radiotopia. From PRX.