Canine Liability 360
October 20 - October 21 2020 @ Olympia, WA | Host: Tactical K9 USA
Canine Liability 360 – October 20 & 21, 2020 – Olympia, Washington. Hosted by Thurston County Sheriff’s Office. Limited to 36 law enforcement personnel on a first-come basis. RESERVATIONS MUST BE CONFIRMED BEFORE ANY TUITION PAYMENT IS INITIATED. Reservations are made by email. To make a reservation, or request a course announcement or more information, contact Bill Lewis II at sgtblewis2@aol.com. Registration deadline is September 18.
CL360 is a 2-day (16 hours) course that serves as an essential phase for the handler and supervisor to assist in managing their K9 program and preparing for their potential “legal defense” to prevail in the event of a lawsuit or claim by examining TAC Team’s “360 Degrees of Responsibility” involving a single purpose patrol dog or cross-trained police service dog assigned to patrol and/or a tactical team. The instructor is Sergeant Bill Lewis II (Retired) with over 40 years of law enforcement and instructor experience related to patrol operations, K9, SWAT, supervision, and leadership. He has published various articles relating to legal trends, case decisions, K9 teams and K9 programs. He started working with K9 teams in 1980 as a decoy and later as a handler, supervisor, instructor, trial judge, consultant, unit evaluator, certifying official and expert witness – over 29 years of K9 experience. Sergeant Lewis was the recipient of the prestigious CATO Lifetime Achievement Award in 2016.
From Canine Liability 360: “The biggest liability with training police K9 teams today is the majority of the time is spent training the dog.”
Note: CL360 is not recommended for detection-only K9 handlers. (See below for narcotics detection liability courses.) The primary focus of the class addresses the use of patrol (“bite”) dogs and the associated liabilities to potentially reduce risk and avoid trouble. Handlers of single purpose tracking/trailing dogs that may or may not bite a suspect at the end of the trail could benefit from attending this class.
K9 handlers, supervisors, administrators, and SWAT team leaders (who deploy with K9 teams) from the same agency are encouraged to attend together so everyone involved with their respective police dog program can simultaneously learn information and hear recommendations for successfully running their program. By doing so, they should all leave with a better understanding of each other’s duties and responsibilities to reduce risk and limit liability. This class has been taught across the United States to experienced – and newly-appointed – K9 handlers, K9 supervisors, K9 administrators, patrol supervisors, patrol watch commanders, SAR handlers, Police Chiefs, SWAT supervisors, and SWAT team leaders as well as city attorneys, a county attorney, prospective handlers, decoys, K9 trainers, an Assistant Police Chief, risk managers, and supervisors/administrators preparing to start or contemplating their own K9 program.
“The best time to prepare for a lawsuit and prevail is before the bite occurs.”
Participants will learn from the firsthand experiences of the instructor – successes and mistakes – as well as experiences of other handlers and supervisors involved with other K9 programs as some cases, videos and incidents not found in “case law updates” are reviewed and lessons learned shared. CL360 goes beyond case law and legal updates to address all aspects involved with a K9 program. The class will include a review prior to the class of actual K9 deployment narratives with related discussion about the reports during the class as well as a report writing exercise at the class as part of the report writing section.
Information shared in this class will assist in K9 program management and may also assist to maintain or justify the retention of your K9 program during budget “cutback” considerations in these tough economic times.
CL360 has been submitted by host agencies and approved for state (like POST) continuing education credit in Missouri, Connecticut, Oklahoma, Oregon, Minnesota, Montana, Ohio, Nevada and North Dakota.
Are you a new K9 supervisor? Have you recently attended a liability and supervision course regarding K9 operations and supervision? Do you have any previous “K9” experience? CL360 courses usually have 50% or more of supervisors and commanders in attendance with “zero” experience with police dogs and K9 operations – and that’s commendable because they are attending these class to better learn about their K9-related duties and responsibilities.