Police Bomb Dog Bites Handler's Son, Mother Sues TSA and Port Authority

A police officer of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey was a K-9 handler of an explosives detection dog owned by the Transportation Security Administration. TSA provides bomb dogs to state and local law enforcement agencies under the National Explosives Detection Canine Team Program (NEDCTP). TSA is responsible for training the dogs and their handlers, as well as for establishing search protocols used by the Port Authority. The Port Authority is responsible for providing handlers, daily care, and kenneling of the dogs. The Port Authority has a “Local Canine Training Manual,” which specifies that safe handling and control of the dog rests with the individual handler to whom it is assigned. Handlers are to report any problems with dogs, such as a dog that growls at the handler. Handlers can also contact the TSA training office for minor behavioral and acclimation problems.

Officer Newsham was assigned a bomb detection dog named Dini trained at the Lackland Air Force Base “Dog School.” (Official picture here shows puppies that will enter Lackland’s TSA program.) Officer Newsham received an “acclimation packet” from TSA and an “ouch letter,” which provided information on how to adjust the dog to its new environment in the handler’s home. There was advice on how to avoid dog bites. Dini spent nonworking hours at Officer Newsham’s home.

Newsham began to notice Dini jumping on bags during searches, a behavior considered inappropriate and aggressive. At the Newsham’s home, the dog did not interact well with the Newshams’ pet dogs. Dini began to be aggressive towards Newsham himself. Newsham took the dog to a military veterinarian for a semi-annual exam and described the aggressive behavior, but no action was taken. There was no protocol for the veterinarian to remove the dog from an assignment. Newsham also mentioned the behavior to his NEDCTP Coordinator, who perhaps should have been concerned in part because aggressive behavior, particularly in alerting, can be dangerous with bomb dogs coming in contact with explosive materials. (Some dogs are trained to recognize both explosives and narcotics, and some trainers attempt to use different alerts with the same dog when training it to recognize different categories of odors, but there is no mention of that here.)

The evening of January 7, 2007, Newsham was watching TV and his son and the dog were in the room. The boy was putting together a puzzle and dropped a piece, which both he and the dog went for at the same time. The dog bit the boy. The boy’s mother filed a complaint against TSA as the owner of the dog, alleging negligence and violation of the New Jersey dog bite statute, seeking damages.

The TSA noted that the NEDCTP has a policy that no one should pet an assigned canine other than the handler. Further, TSA allows local law enforcement agencies to board assigned dogs in the handlers’ homes but also to put them in kennels. The court found that NEDCTP officials had not violated program requirements, and held the TSA immune from suit under the Federal Tort Claims Act, 28 U.S.C. 1346(b). State law claims could proceed against the Port Authority in state court, however. Newsham v. Transportation Security Administration, 2010 WL 715838 (D.N.J. 2010).

Dog bite laws have been applied to police dogs. See Hyatt v. Anoka Police Department, 691 NW2d 828 (Minn. Sup. Ct. 2005). The circumstances here, however, are rather unique and the officer may share some of the responsibility since he knew the dog was becoming aggressive. It is not clear to me that having the wife sue on behalf of the son and leaving the husband off the plaintiff list will resolve this conflict if the matter comes before another court.

It would be unfortunate if a case like this were taken as indicating that police dogs should be kenneled while off duty. There is good evidence that a dog that lives and plays with its handler will be more obedient to the handler and generally a better police dog. This appears to be more important in achieving a good relationship than a long period of working together. Lefebvre, D., Diederich, C., Delcourt, M., and Giffroy, J.-M. (2007). The Quality of the Relation Between Handler and Military Dogs Influences Efficiency and Welfare of Dogs. Applied Animal Behaviour Science, 104, 49-60.

Explosives Detection Canine Teams Increase at Airports and Rail Systems, but Coverage Is Still Thin

Finding hard statistics about government canine programs can be difficult. The Secret Service, for instance, considers the number of explosives detection canine teams it deploys to be sensitive information. Most government websites provide rather generic information with cute pictures of puppies that will be trained for various purposes, but say little about numbers and costs.

The Government Accountability Office has, however, issued some reports with useful details for those of us who want to get some quantitative data about canine programs. A report on the explosives detection canine teams deployed by the Transportation Safety Administration (GAO-08-933R) provides some details about the progress of the Department of Homeland Security in deploying an additional 200 explosives detection teams assigned to air and rail safety. This number is to be added to the approximately 425 explosives detection canine teams assigned to airports and mass transit systems in 2007, when the 9/11 Commission Act (PL 110-53) mandated the increase of 200 teams. The fiscal year 2011 budget of the Department of Homeland Security anticipates another 275 explosives detection canine teams, over 200 of which will be at airports.

The Transportation Security Administration’s National Explosive Detection Canine Team Program (NEDCTP) assigns most teams to airports. In 2008, 370 teams were deployed at 69 airports, while 56 teams were deployed to 14 mass transit systems and railways. In 2009, there were 88 teams at 15 mass transit and rail systems. Assignments of teams are based in part on proximity of a rail system to critical infrastructure, so for Amtrak, for instance, the largest concentration of canine teams is along the Northeast Corridor. In addition to patrolling the facilities to which they are assigned, dogs also screen cargo and participate in joint missions, called Visible Intermodal Prevention and Response (VIPR) missions, which involve target deployments of participants from various agencies for specific objectives. Dogs are generally supposed to be visible at airports and rail stations on the theory that their presence may discourage terrorists and criminals. Cargo screening also includes patrolling facilities serving overseas military objectives.

In 2008, aviation teams under the NEDCTP received $36.3 million, mass transit teams received $5.5 million, air cargo inspection received $7 million, and Iraq Supplemental received $20 million (also air cargo). The NEDCTP director is in offices of the TSA headquarters in Arlington, Most training and evaluation is done at the Defense Military Working Dog School at Lackland Air Force Base near San Antonio (known to law enforcement nationwide as “dog school”).

Canine teams supplied by state and local law enforcement to airports and rail systems receive a TSA subsidy, capped at approximately $50,000 per year, but the state and local agencies must agree to devote 80% of the subsidized team’s time to the operational environment—i.e., to the airport or mass transit facility. About 500 state and local canine teams receive this support at present. The dogs one sees deployed at Penn Station in New York City may be wearing NYPD vests, but a significant part of the team’s expenses (including part of the officer’s salary) come from federal sources.

The GAO report describes the NEDCTP training as consisting of:

• Two months of learning to identify several explosive odors.
• A ten-week training course at Lackland where teams learn to detect explosive odors in environments such as aircraft and mass transit terminals, luggage, vehicles, cargo, and buildings.
• A two-month acclimation period.
• A 14-day “training mission” in an operational environment.

NEDCTP trains about 18 classes per year, each with 12 student teams, producing about 216 dogs annually. Dogs must be recertified annually. Some teams are taught to work “in maritime mode” for the U.S. Coast Guard.

The number of skilled canine teams is steadily increasing, and more will be certified through the end of 2010. To have an adequate number of dogs and personnel, the Department of Homeland Security cannot rely solely on dogs that it breeds at its Canine Breeding and Development Center, which began operations in 1999. Many dogs are acquired from the private sector or from nonprofit organizations. Although the number of dogs is increasing, only about six dogs at the average airport, and about six dogs per mass transit system, with most dogs working only one shift per day, means that the responsibilities of canine team are still spread quite thin.