Belleville Police receive second second canine unit donated by local businesses

As of Friday June 28, 2024 our second Canine Unit composed of canine officer Dash and his handler Constable Darrell Hatfield will be operational.
This has been a long journey made possible by contributions from our community partners including Cobourg Development Services, The Stirling Veterinary Service, and Pet Valu Belleville. This process started in February of this year when we posted the position and ended with the presentation of a graduation certificate to Constable Hatfield. The Belleville Police Service will hold a media event and demonstration on Tuesday July 30th at 1:00 pm to introduce Darrell and Dash to the community and recognize our sponsors.

We are thrilled to see the expansion of this program which will provide double the coverage we currently have and provide our first handler Constable Mclnroy with some much needed time off with his family and relief from his previous 24/7 on call responsibilities. In addition, Constable Mcinroy has now been certified as a canine mentor by the course instructor Constable Lance Montigny of the Windsor Police Service!

Police Chief Mike Callaghan

Mr. O’Brien inquired about the community partners for this project; specifically, that two out of three are from outside of Belleville. Acting Chief Barry noted that this speaks to the regional approach of this unit. Constable McInroy travels across the province and this second Canine Unit will provide him with some much-needed time off from his previous 24/7 on call responsibilities. The Board is invited to the media event and demonstration on July 30th.

Belleville Police Service Board

It’s important for everybody to have their downtime and their time off, and we cannot continue to have one officer on call, 24/7, 12 months of the year, like we were before. Those officers have a very stressful job. They need to decompress. They need to get away from their work and spend time with their family. So we’re excited they’ll be able to rotate time off and on call coverage.

Constable McInroy was tracking his calls. He brought it to the senior management team. We got some corporate sponsors lined up that were really, really raring to go with us.  It’s a great tool for a community and a police service of our size to have two dogs is just fantastic.

Acting Police Chief Chris Barry

Both canine teams are trained in human scent tracking and the detection of illegal drugs, firearms, and ammunition, and support a wide range of
operations including building searches, suspect tracking, missing person cases, evidence recovery, and search warrants with the Emergency Response Unit.

Within two weeks of deployment, PSD DASH successfully located a suspect who had assaulted officers and evaded arrest, and since then has assisted in numerous investigations and interagency operations.

Doubling Down on Detection
The Unit also remains active in the community, giving demonstrations at schools, youth camps, and public events, while maintaining certification through continuous training. This growth was made possible through strong community support and sponsorship from City of Belleville members.

2024 Annual Report