The Police Dog Who Cried Drugs at Every Traffic Stop

[WhiskeyGrinder]

https://reason.com/2021/05/13/the-police-dog-who-cried-drugs-at-every-traffic-stop/

As a drug detection dog, Karma kept his nose down and treated every suspect the same. Public records show that from the time he arrived in Republic in January 2018 until his handler took a leave of absence to campaign for public office in 2020, Karma gave an "alert" indicating the presence of drugs 100 percent of the time during roadside sniffs outside vehicles.

Whether drivers actually possessed illegal narcotics made no difference. The government gained access to every vehicle that Karma ever sniffed. He essentially created automatic probable cause for searches and seizures, undercutting constitutional guarantees of due process.

Similar patterns abound nationwide, suggesting that Karma's career was not unusual. Lex, a drug detection dog in Illinois, alerted for narcotics 93 percent of the time during roadside sniffs, but was wrong in more than 40 percent of cases. Sella, a drug detection dog in Florida, gave false alerts 53 percent of the time. Bono, a drug detection dog in Virginia, incorrectly indicated the presence of drugs 74 percent of the time.

Despite the frequent errors, courts typically treat certified narcotics dogs as infallible, allowing law enforcement agencies to use them like blank permission slips to enter vehicles, open suitcases, and rummage through purses.

And for those who like to offer "MoRe TrAiNiNg" as a cure, there's this:

A 2011 study from the University of California, Davis, shows how cues can influence drug detection dogs. When human handlers believed that narcotics were hidden in test areas, their canine partners were much more likely to indicate the presence of drugs—even when no drugs actually existed.

Police participants did not like the implications. But rather than using the findings to improve their training techniques, they denounced the study and refused further cooperation.

[Calculating]

1. Police dogs are an absolute joke and should be outlawed

Why are our legal rights being determined by dogs? I like dogs and all, but they shouldn't be able to determine whether a cop can search us or not.

[Hugh_Lebowski]

3. For the purpose of creating probably cause for searching or persons and vehicles, definitely (nt)

[MerryHolidays]

2. Very, very bad boy!

Not you, Karma. Whoever trained you....

I'm shocked, but I'm not shocked.

[panader0]

4. Out of curiosity, what's the deal with an upper case letter and then a lower one as in MoRe?

I've seen it around and hate being out of the loop.

[Hekate]

7. Same here. Would love to know.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

16. It's from an old meme.

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2017/05/what-is-the-mocking-spongebob-capitalized-letters-chicken-meme.html

[WhiskeyGrinder]

15. It's from an old meme.

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2017/05/what-is-the-mocking-spongebob-capitalized-letters-chicken-meme.html

[panader0]

19. Sponge Bob?--Explains why I'm out of the loop on this.

[stopdiggin]

18. the upper-lower case thing

(which drives me nuts, and I hope it goes away quickly -- like all caps 'SHOUTING' .) is apparently the texting equivalent of sarcasm or mockery.

Alternacaps (alternating caps) are used to convey mockery when imitating someone else. -snip - Usually this formatting is used when referring to debunked or tired arguments commonly employed by ideological opponents.

[PoliticAverse]

5. The horse who could do math...

http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2013/12/horse-math-unintentional-clever-hans-hoax/

[EYESORE 9001]

6. ACAB

including, apparently, some of the four-legged variety as well.

[Elessar Zappa]

8. Well, it's not the dogs fault.

It doesn’t know it’s ruining people’s lives.

[EYESORE 9001]

9. Yeah, I know

It was a poor excuse for a joke.

[Elessar Zappa]

11. I figured it was.

But ya never know lol.

[ProfessorGAC]

10. Sounds Like That Was Trained

Given they offer other examples, this feels like someone trained the dogs to react to every stranger.
This is unlikely to be the dog's problem. More a problem with the trainer who believed it was ok to search anybody & everybody at every stop.

[happybird]

12. If a cop wants to search a car, all they have to do is give the dog a hand signal

The dog will alert when given the the silent, subtle command.

[stopdiggin]

13. not ready to say there is NO roll

for a canine in LE work -- but a lot of this is just laughably unscientific hodge-podge. (together with confirmation bias on the part of handlers) Courts (and police forces) must insist on uniform and consistent training (with frequent re-enforcement) -- and absolutely verifiable (non-subjective) testing and results. Any animal that is throwing false positives or negatives, to any appreciable number (20-25%?), has no business being in the field. And certainly no place on a warrant, or in a court.

(Other hand -- bloodhounds have done some pretty darned good, and lifesaving, work for us over the years.)

[Midnight Writer]

14. I watched a dog and handler "search" my car. It was a joke.

The handler would say "Here, boy" and pat a spot on my car with his hand. When the dog came over to sniff at the spot, the cop says "We just got a hit!"

Hell, my dog will do that all day. I was laughing out loud until they took my car to be searched at the "station".

I sat in a waiting area all night and into the next morning while they searched.

They didn't find anything. When I finally got permission to take my car, they had taken everything out and left it on the pavement.

I had to reload my car. Thankfully, nothing was missing or damaged.

Before I got out of there, an intense cop came over and told me he knew what I was up to, and I was playing a dangerous game. He asked me how many trips I made to Mexico. I told him I'd never been to Mexico and he said he knew that wasn't true, they had me on camera at a border crossing.

[Demovictory9]

17. the search for illegal drugs is crazy. illegal drugs as a measure of the worst of anything

why not search for illegal bomb making material or child porn? yeah, drug addiction is a bad thing but having the cops focus on it is a path to abuse.