Canines Graduate from MTA program — including one dog named for a local hero

Thirteen canine and police officer teams graduated from the Metropolitan Transportation Authority Police Department explosives detection and anti-terrorism training at a January 31 ceremony at Grand Central Terminal in New York City. The canines are now official officers of the MTAPD and have small police shields affixed to their collars.

Among the new officers is Joey, a dog named in honor of U.S. Army First Lieutenant Joseph J. Theinert, a Shelter Island native who was killed by an IED in Afghanistan in 2010. Joey’s partner is MTAPD Officer Christopher Matias.

The new teams have already experienced active duty. They were pressed into service for additional patrols at Grand Central Terminal and Penn Station following December’s bombing inside of a subway passage.

The officers, canine and human, successfully completed an intensive 12-week explosive detection course at the MTAPD’s 72-acre training center in Dutchess County. It’s the only state-of-the-art mass transit specific training center in the nation.

The campus houses nine indoor-scenario training areas and multiple outdoor training fields and obstacle courses and areas with cars, buses, platforms and even a decommissioned train, classrooms, twenty-four kennels, a veterinary room with medical kennels, and administrative offices. The outdoor and indoor training grounds provide the MTAPD with an unlimited number of scenarios to teach, drill and test the dogs.

Only about one in 30 canines tested are deemed skilled enough to the join the MTAPD’s elite unit. The MTAPD has one of the largest canine explosives detection forces in the country, with approximately 50 dogs in service.

Eleven of the graduates, including Joey and his partner, will enter into active service with the MTA, investigating suspicious packages and patrolling the trains, stations, tracks and facilities of the Long Island Rail Road, Metro-North Railroad and Staten Island Railway, a 5,000-square-mile territory covering 14 counties in New York and Connecticut.

“In our post 9/11 world, the MTAPD canine unit is crucial to our counter-terrorism efforts and keeping the public safe,” said MTA Chief of Police, Owen Monaghan, in a statement. “Twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, canine officer teams maintain a watchful presence over the MTA’s entire system, patrolling our stations, platforms, trains and parking lots. Last year alone, the unit responded to over 25,000 calls for service and cleared 4,015 unattended packages.”

Canines in the MTAPD’s unit, typically German Shepherds or German Shepherd/Belgian Shepherd mixes, are roughly a year and a half old when they go through the rigorous course and can serve in active duty for up to eight or nine years before retiring. Each dog forms a deep, emotional bond with his or her police partner. They not only work together for life, the canine lives with the officer, becoming part of the family.

In keeping with tradition, the canines are named in honor of fallen police officers, firefighters and members of the United States Armed Services.

AH