A meeting set to address community struggles surrounding the purchase of a K-9 officer in New Concord developed into a meeting of fully supportive community members dedicated to getting drugs off their streets.

Tuesday evening, the New Concord Police Department held a community meeting to invite the public to learn about the need of a K-9 officer in the village. Originally planned to clear up misconceptions, the roughly 30-member crowd supported the purchase.

Chief Mindy Peck, along with her officers, presented a number of drug related cases that had been caught in New Concord, most of those cases stemming from traffic stops.

Officer Jeffrey Traub, the intended K-9 handler, explained the training associated with the dog, went over drug-related cases he was personally involved with and spoke about the legal ways the K-9 would benefit the force.

Citing the case of Illinois vs Caballes — Supreme Court ruling in 2005 that it does not violate a person’s fourth amendment rights to use a drug-sniffing K-9 at a reasonably timed traffic stop — Traub stated during the meeting that a K-9 would not violate the fourth amendment right of anyone in the community or those passing through New Concord.

Echoing Traub’s cases and diving into his own, Officer Jeff Dawson said the smell of marijuana makes it easy for an officer to have probable cause, whereas other drugs and abused substances do not put off a detectable odor. While officers do ask drivers if they can search their car, unless there is probable cause, a person can refuse the search without any repercussions.

“We make a traffic stop on a vehicle when we suspect something is in that vehicle,” Dawson said. “If I don’t smell anything and I don’t have probable cause to get in that vehicle I can ask, I can ask for consent if they tell me no, say ‘no I’m in a hurry I gotta go, you’re not allowed to search my vehicle,’ there’s no K-9 around that person goes down the street and they can have anything and everything in that vehicle.”

In addition to New Concord’s officer, Lieutenant Melanie Appleman from the Ohio State Highway Patrol Cambridge Post presented facts and figures surrounding drug activity that OSP’s seventh district has seen in the past couple of years.

“It’s coming in through Ohio, especially with West Virginia, the borders. It’s coming in and it’s passing right through us,” Appleman said.

Questions from the public ranged from asking what the most negative feedback the department has received in regards to the K-9 to how much would it all cost to can the dog be used to search a home.

Peck tackled the largest misconception that community members have harped on concerning the targeting of college students.

“A lot of people we’re hearing in town, a lot of the misconception is a lot of our drug cases are probably (at) the college or University students,” Peck said. “That is the farthest thing from the truth. Our number, honestly, on the college on down.”

Getting into the finances, the start up cost with getting a K-9 officer, with the inclusion of the dog, training for both the dog and the officer, a vehicle and the equipment to go in it equates to roughly $30,000 to $40,000. The annual cost of upkeep for the K-9 and the vehicle after the first year is roughly $4,000.

Village Administrator Charlotte Colley said the goal is to raise enough funds to support the initial start up cost, as well as one to two years of annual costs before the dog and vehicle are purchased.

Following the discussion of funds, another community member asked if money seized from drug-related cases could be put into the annual fund for the K-9. Traub stated that not only can the physical cash go into the K-9 fund, but also the money from seized vehicles in drug cases.

Lori Brown, a recently retired teacher from the Rolling Hills School District and a New Concord rental property owner, said she has no doubt that drugs are within the village’s community. She cited a situation where the grandchildren of a woman that overdosed said their grandmother was a dealer.

“It’s hitting the schools, over in Rolling Hills, these kids can tell you where to get the drugs, they can tell you how to administer the drug, they can tell you anything you need to know,” Brown said. “And it’s really sad … when you say, ‘Well can’t you go to your neighbors for help’ and they say, ‘Nope, it’s a meth house.’”

Brown was not the only community member testifying to the needs of a K-9 in the village.

“I live here in town, and I think it’s so important to get this dog because when you’re in a town and people know you don’t have that resource, then people are going to come to that town because they can get away with it,” New Concord resident Carrie Johnson said.

The New Concord Police Department is currently in the fundraising stages of the K-9 officer purchase. Peck emphasized multiple time throughout the meeting that the K-9 will have no bearing on community members’ taxes and will solely be funded through donations.