A missing 12-year-old child was found after a police K9 tracked her scent Wednesday night.
Police in Auburn, Mass., learned around 10:30 p.m. that the child had been missing from her home for about two hours, according to a post on the Auburn Police Department’s Facebook page. Massachusetts State Police officers then joined local officers “due to the cold temperatures and nature of the incident.”
The Auburn Police Department also deployed K9, Biza and K9 Officer David Llunggren to assist in the search.
The female German shepherd and Ljunggren then picked up a scent that led them on a two-mile search that ended with the child being found.
Biza “led officers to an area where evidence indicated the child had been present a short time earlier,” police said in a statement. “Officers converged on the area and located the child a short time later.”
“The child has been reunited with his family and is safe,” the statement continued. “We are proud of the hard work K9 Biza has put in and are happy to report a positive outcome!”
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Officer David Ljunggren and K9 Biza.
Auburn MA Police/ X
Biza’s role in the department is to use her “superior sense of smell” to help officers who need help “locating suspects, narcotics, evidence, firearms or even explosives,” according to the Auburn Police Department’s website. “Most importantly, K9s are often used to locate missing children, missing seniors or disabled people who have wandered off.”
At one and a half years old, Biza joined the Auburn Police Department in 2022, according to her Instagram account. She traveled from Germany and received financial support from Massachusetts-based Vest-A-Dog to join the K9 force, WBZ reports.
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K9 Biza.
Auburn MA Police Department/ Facebook
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Since joining the department, Biza also located a suspect involved in a bar fight, the police department reported in September 2023. Days before that incident, she located a suspect in a domestic violence case, according to a Facebook post by authorities.
Biza has also assisted other police departments in finding “disturbed” missing adults. In August 2023, the police department in Shrewsbury, Massachusetts hired Biza to search for a missing 25-year-old. She successfully located him less than an hour after he was reported missing, according to the police department.
Categories: Trends
Source: HIS Education