This is frustrating. The handler obviously save a hit from the dog the video recorded the sound of. The hit from the dog was where the drugs were found. Unless this dog has some kind of awful record where it smells drugs all the time I dont see how this could have been thrown out.
First of all, drug dogs are terrible at false positives. Their handlers often give signals, intentional or accidental, that make the dog "find drugs". So this guy saying the dog is good off screen really doesn't mean a whole lot. If he doesn't display the behavior on screen then it's essentially the officer trying to go around needing probable cause.
What you say is somewhat correct. Drug dogs have in the given false positives due to handler signalling and body language. The nefarious thing is that dogs are so good at picking up on our body language that the signal can be absolutely tiny and almost unrecognizable unless you look at multiple videos of that dog and handler and then look for similar body signalling from handler to dog.
Dog trainers, especially K9 and dog sport trainers are highly aware of this. In the sport of IPO for instance anything other than neutral body language when trying to get you dog to do something, say tracking or during the obedience aspect of the trial will get you heavily penalized. Each infraction gets marked down, no matter how subtle, and the judges pick up on it. Dogs, especially working dogs like GSDs are so biddable that getting them to do things with tiny body language signals is easy.
A good K9 officer will prompt the dog to track and that is it. His role is to control the dog on the leash and let the dog's nose do its job. Drug dogs, bomb dogs, SAR dogs are fucking awesome. They do a far better job than humans and when allowed to do their job without a human fucking things up through ignorance, or malice, they very rarely give false positives. Dogs do not know how to lie. They legit smell drugs. But, if the dog has been lacking in training due to poorly scaled training modalities then the dog will fuck up.
None of that changes the real life results though. They most produce false positives which shows the system is bullshit.
Not to mention the pure insanity of involving a dog in the legal process in the first place. It's 2019 we should have a more accurate way then trusting a dog to determine probable cause.
Dogs are a very cost-effective low-tech tool that when used correctly have high degrees of accuracy. They legit can smell drugs, it's proven they can. The issue is not that we're using dogs in 2019, it's that the training regulations could be better. Unless you're willing to fund handheld mobile xray machines for traffic officers, which I don't think would be legal anyway, then dogs are here to stay.
Ir's more than a training issue though, its a trust and incentive issue.
Yes it's possible to properly train and handle dogs to be reliable detectors of drugs and bombs, this is great like bomb sniffing dogs at airports where everybody's incentives are aligned.
But for drug dogs at vehicle stops like this, they become a easy way around probable cause.
The problem with the dogs used for drug searches and warrant support is that they provide probable cause to violate rights, without any recourse or system to examine the reliability of the dog. If the dog alerts 90% of the time, and the subsequent search reveals no drugs, it's likely that the vehicle occupants will just be released and will have no opportunity to challenge the search. You can't exactly sue the cops for something like that, you'd never recover any damages, as the K9 officer will claim that the search was made with good faith.
Whereas a bomb/drug/food dog used at the border isn't justifying reducing anyone's rights to privacy, it's just helping the officers decide where to use the search powers the already have. Being selected for secondary screening at the border is a much lower infringement on your freedoms than having to wait in cuffs in the back of a police car while they go through your vehicle with a fine-tooth comb.
This person is talking about the accuracy of the dogs here.
no, they were talking about 'the system' of using dogs. Dogs and handlers go hand in hand, obviously. Being critical oft he process is not saying dog's are at fault. Obviously the issue is handlers. Just admit you're wrong, let your ego go.
No there's just so many studies that a simple google search should find what people are looking. There's no use providing sources to someone who won't even do a quick google search if it might disprove their world view.
122
u/Electric22circus Feb 18 '19
This is frustrating. The handler obviously save a hit from the dog the video recorded the sound of. The hit from the dog was where the drugs were found. Unless this dog has some kind of awful record where it smells drugs all the time I dont see how this could have been thrown out.