NORMAN- (KOKH) — K9’s are typically sniffing out drugs that officers aren’t able to smell with their own noses, but Murphy with the Norman Police Department is tasked with a different kind of job: sniffing out cellphones, hard drives, laptops, and anything electronic.
“Murphy is trained in smelling TPPO. It’s the chemical compound that coats all of the chips used in each of the devices. That chemical keeps those chips from overheating,” said Detective Megan Kieft with the Norman Police Department.
Murphy will play a big part in finding electronics that are used in some of the most heinous crimes.
“We are primarily going to utilize her in ICAC cases, so crimes against children, child exploitation, anything like that,” Kieft said.
In her three weeks on the job, Murphy has already been put to work, recently playing a part in the arrest of a Blanchard man who was possessing child sexual abuse material. But, Kieft said Murphy won’t only be used for those kinds of cases.
“She can be used in any type of case; all of our cases now, touch, digital media, so any big case, homicides, anything like that, typically there’s a digital element to it. So if she’s needed for a device that’s been hidden, we can still utilize her for that,” she said.
Kieft took Murphy on a trial run for us, and the Murph mutt passed with flying colors, finding the hidden phones easily. We tried talking to her about her new role, but she seemed too locked in for interviews.
Murphy is one of six police dogs like her in Oklahoma and is the first Electronic Detection K9 in the Oklahoma City Metro.
