TULSA, Okla. — A new Tulsa Police Department K-9 is helping to protect children by sniffing out the smallest devices to help prosecute child sex abuse material abusers.
Ripley is a master in electronic storage detection.
"She has been specially, trained to scent out a chemical used in the manufacture of electronic storage devices. It’s sprayed on circuit boards to prevent them from overheating, so it’s used in everything from your smallest micro SD card all the way up to a computer tower or a laptop,” said Detective Aubrey Williams.
WATCH: New Tulsa police K-9 sniffing out devices used for child sex abuse material
Ripley was donated to the department by the Secret Service.
“When we go out and we’re trying to apprehend these online child predators, we know that they are very good at encryption and in hiding their online footprint and hiding the way that they’re storing their data, so we know that if we miss a single device that could mean missing terabytes of data,” said Williams.
In addition to the work that she does to sniff out child sex abuse material, Ripley is also great at calming distraught children.
“We’ve had close to 25 live child rescues this year, and we know that these kids are having the absolute worst days of their lives, and when we take them and we have them forensically interviewed, it’s really, really wonderful to have a therapy dog to just sit and provide some comfort,” said Williams.
Ripley also aids in the mental health support of the entire unit, which consumes dozens of hours of this type of extremely disturbing material each week, which can take a tremendous toll on the officer.
"She is also like a therapy animal to our office. We have a team of five officers who work for our unit and it’s a tough job. We’re consuming 40 hours of this material every week and there’s definitely a mental toll to it,” said Williams.
She says the department does provide free counseling for the officers who need it through First Responder Support Services.
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