Henry County Sheriff’s Office: K-9 Officers Busy over the Past Several Weeks

According to Sheriff Kent Oberkrom, K-9 Osha, a German Shepherd, and K-9 Lutz, a Belgian Malinois, have assisted not only sheriff’s deputies, but other agencies and school districts on several occasions over the past several weeks.

Sheriff’s Office K-9s have been involved with locker and vehicles searches in parking lots in three different school districts. Within Henry County, both K-9s recently conducted searches within the Henry R-1 School District in Windsor. Prior to those searches, the K-9s conducted searches in the Warsaw School District in Benton County and the Lakeland School District in St. Clair County. “We believe that our dogs are great deterrents when utilized within our school districts, in an attempt to detect illegal drugs which may jeopardize a safe learning environment for our school-aged children”, Sheriff Oberkrom stated.

Over the past weekend, K-9 Osha was utilized during the service of a search warrant on Friday morning, while K-9 Lutz assisted with K-9 sniffs of vehicles on Friday afternoon while assisting the Missouri State Highway Patrol during a traffic stop, then again on Saturday afternoon, while assisting a sheriff’s deputy during a traffic stop. “As a dog’s sense of smell is at a minimum, at least 1,000 times greater than a human’s, they can assist us in locating the odor of illegal drugs that as humans, we would not be able to detect”, Sheriff Oberkrom concluded.

K-9 Osha is currently being handled by Sheriff Oberkrom, while K-9 Lutz is handled by Major Rob Hills.