DELAND, Fla. – Volusia County schools have a new way to detect weapons on campuses: a weapons-detecting dog. K9 Maverick just started his job as an extra layer of security.
“Myself and Maverick went through a K9 single-purpose detection school for guns and ammunition,” said handler Deputy Troy Akeley.
Akeley told News 6 he has been introducing Maverick to all of Volusia’s schools and getting him used to being around the students for almost three weeks.
“Say we get a tip or we’re doing routine proactive stuff at the schools, and he finds something, he’ll alert to that by sitting and staring at whatever we need to check,” he said.
Maverick and Deputy Akeley demonstrated what it would look like if he found a gun or ammo. Akeley led Maverick to smell a row of lockers, the dog first snapping at the locker hiding the test item, and on the second walk-by, sitting in front of the locker.
“Obviously, you see the gates, you see the fences, single point entry. All of the other technology that we’re using. This is just another added layer of security,” said Captain Todd Smith, head of the district’s safety team.
Smith said 26 weapons have been caught on Volusia school campuses so far this year. The district also added random searches for students with moving metal detectors.
“We currently have a lot of protections from threats that come in from the outside. This is a protection for a threat that could be inside the school,” said Smith.
K9 Maverick is another internal checkpoint and, Akeley said, a great addition to building community at the schools.
“Obviously he’s really cute, so we want to get him out so the kids can see him and know that we have another asset in our unit to make sure the kids are safe which is our ultimate goal,” he said.
Smith said they believe adding these different safety features is also deterring issues.
In the 2022-2023 school year, 82 weapons were found on campuses and that number went down to 50 found in all of last school year. Out of the 26 weapons found so far this year, none have been firearms.
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