Medina County Sheriff's Office gives equipment and K-9 demonstration at Medina County Fair

MEDINA — Sergeants from the Medina County Sheriff's Office gave a demonstration of SWAT equipment and showed off one of their K-9s during the Medina County Fair on Friday. Sgt. Dave King was in the fair's pavilion with his K-9 Rocky, a 9-year-old Belgian Malinois from Czechoslovakia. He said Rocky is trained to sniff for drugs, track people, do article searches and apprehend people when necessary for the sheriff's office. King said Rocky is the second K-9 he has been in charge of. In about another year, Rocky will have reached retirement age, and he will continue to live with King after he retires. "He goes to work with me every day, and he goes home with me every day," King said. "He drives me nuts every day." King demonstrated how high Rocky could jump in the air and his strength by playing tug-of-war with a ball on a string on Friday. Afterward, children were able to see Rocky up close and pet him. Later, Sgt. Ben Taylor showed the crowd the kind of SWAT tools the sheriff's office has. He used a controller to navigate a robot that has cameras and a claw arm into the pavilion. He said it is used in situations that would be dangerous for people to go in. The sheriff's office also flew a drone inside the pavilion, which can be used in conjunction with the robot by doing tasks like opening doors, Taylor said. The drone can also be used by itself for accident reconstruction or to do an open area search for a missing person. "If we get somebody with Alzheimer's or some kind of other mental handicap that has walked away from a facility, we can use these drones to check areas around the facility where they might have left and attempt to locate them," he said. "This allows us to cover a lot of area very fast and allows us to have a better chance of finding them in good health." Contact reporter Madisyn Woodring at (330) 721-4049 or mwoodring@medina-gazette.com.