JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 As we head into the back-to-school season, all sorts of threats can pop up on school campuses. That\u2019s why Duval County Public Schools and its police dogs are doing their part to detect threats on campuses.<\/p>\n
A group of four canines is trained on a variety of different simulated odors to find guns and drugs. On Monday, at A. Phillip Randolph Career Academies in Moncrief, police trainers ran the animals through four scenarios to exercise their abilities. <\/p>\n
\u201cSo this is just part of the training that goes on all summer long while our students are enjoying summer vacation. Our police officers are actively still at work training and getting ready to keep students and staff safe for the next school year,\u201d said DCPS Police Chief Jackson Short. <\/p>\n
>>> STREAM ACTION NEWS JAX LIVE <<<<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n In more than five scenarios, a group of four canines demonstrated their ability to detect odors to locate contraband or people. These dogs located everything from firearms to a cocaine base in a backpack. The dogs even helped find a missing child and dropped evidence from a fleeing suspect in another.<\/p>\n \u201cWe utilize the Fortify Florida app,\u201d said Chief Short. <\/p>\n \u201cNot just students and staff, but anyone can report a tip anonymously, and they can also upload pictures or video if they need to that app,\u201d Chief Short added. <\/p>\n [DOWNLOAD: <\/b>Free Action News Jax app for alerts as news breaks<\/b><\/a>]<\/b><\/p>\n In another change, younger students will also be subject to stricter security measures. <\/p>\n \u201cThis upcoming year we\u2019re going to actually start weapons detection into elementary schools. We do feel like our elementary students deserve the same level of safety and security that all of our other students,\u201d Chief Short said. <\/p>\n The size of the canine unit has doubled from 2 to 4 dogs with a fifth on the way. Officials say it\u2019s at no cost to the school district. <\/p>\n [SIGN UP: <\/b>Action News Jax Daily Headlines Newsletter<\/b><\/a>] <\/b><\/p>\n Click here<\/b><\/a> to download the free Action News Jax news and weather apps, <\/b>click here<\/b><\/a> to download the Action News Jax Now app for your smart TV and <\/b>click here<\/b><\/a> to stream Action News Jax live.<\/b><\/p>\n Action News Jax Top Stories<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 As we head into the back-to-school season, all sorts of threats can pop up on…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":948028,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5136],"tags":[12189,5229,10082,26459,82520,3188,723,254049,92588,7310,188935,425,50,7207,67,586,132,5230,68,2969,177391],"class_list":["post-948027","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville","tag-action_news","tag-america","tag-chief","tag-dcps","tag-duval_county_public_schools","tag-fl","tag-florida","tag-jack_zion_dakota","tag-jackson_short","tag-jacksonville","tag-k-9","tag-local","tag-news","tag-police","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa","tag-zion"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116953889283686642","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/948027","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=948027"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/948027\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/948028"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=948027"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=948027"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=948027"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}