January 24, 2006 > Bomb dog sniffs out trouble

The Walnut Creek Police Department is crediting the discovery of illegal firearms and explosives to one of BART's bomb sniffing dog teams.

On Jan. 10, Walnut Creek Police asked BART Police Officer Jason Ledford and his explosive detecting dog, Andy, to determine whether a garage contained explosives. Andy used his highly trained nose to independently confirm that the garage did.
Soon after, Walnut Creek Police were able to get a judge to issue a search warrant based largely on the evidence Andy found.

BART's K-9 team was established in 1990. Initially, BART used the K-9 teams to protect passengers, locate hidden suspects and track down stolen evidence. Then, around the time of the March 2004 Madrid, Spain train bombings, BART began to use the dogs in its anti-terrorism efforts by cross-training the dogs to sniff for explosives. BART currently has nine canine teams.