Smelling technology? Meet the Memphis police dog combatting internet crimes against kids

A Commercial Appeal reporter and photojournalist walked to the second-floor training room at the Memphis Police Department's North Main headquarters to meet a new member of MPD's internet crimes against children (ICAC) task force.

The newest member, a three-year-old English Retriever named Glitch, joined MPD in January and is tasked with finding electronics and electronic storage devices. If there's a cell phone, laptop, hard drive or SD card in a home, it's up to Glitch to track it down, and MPD is the only department in West Tennessee to have a dog like him.

His impact in the months since joining MPD is not exactly quantifiable, his handler Sgt. Joshua Davis told The CA during the visit.

"It's because we don't know what we didn't find," Davis said.

That statement was on full display when photojournalist Stu Boyd and I were tasked with searching the training room for hidden devices.

For about 10 minutes we searched the training room, looking under desks, behind blinds, sifting through binders and lifting trash cans. In that ten-minute search, a cell phone, tablet, two body cameras and an apple watch were found throughout the room.

And we felt pretty confident we had at least found the large stuff that was hidden.

So Davis left the room to get Glitch, who was patiently waiting a few rooms over for the opportunity to get to work.

Glitch spent about 15 seconds sniffing the room before he indicated he found something under a chair. Then a few seconds later he found something under a trash can that we had looked under earlier, but thought we found nothing.

Then he found something under a wheel, then in a cubby under a desk. And finished his search in the binders I had searched.

In four minutes, Glitch had found another cell phone, two micro SD cards, a stick of rapid access memory (RAM) and a thumb drive.

Seeing Glitch sniff the room, and scan every inch of the room in a seemingly methodical way, left me equally impressed at his abilities — and embarrassed to have missed devices in areas I thought I had thoroughly searched.

Davis said when his team is executing a search warrant, detectives will do a cursory search of an area, the way Stu and I did, before bringing Glitch in. He also said it is common for detectives to find the larger objects, and Glitch to find the remaining small stuff that might be tucked away.

Electronic detection dogs help investigate sex crimes against children

Glitch officially joined MPD in January and is funded by Operation Underground Railroad, an anti-sex trafficking nonprofit, and was trained by Todd Jordan, of Jordan K9 Detection, in Indiana.

Jordan has been training dogs to smell for accelerants and flammable liquids in arson investigations since the 1990s but started training electronic storage detection dogs in 2014. According to him, having dogs sniff out electronics is still a fairly new practice that was questioned early on.

"When I started, people had never heard of dogs looking for electronics," Jordan said. "So I had to go out and prove myself — actually let the dogs find things — so we would go in search warrants, and every time the dog would find something. I had to build that resume. I had to go do demonstrations for the U.S. Attorney and I'd do all these crazy things and jumped through hoops because nobody really believed it. They thought it was like a witchcraft or something, I guess."

The practice, he said, gained legitimacy after he and his first electronics dog helped execute a search warrant on former Subway spokesman Jared Fogel's home during a federal probe into accusations he had, and was distributing, child pornography.

Jordan said the dog, Bear, was able to help locate "key evidence" that led to a plea agreement in the case against Fogel in 2015. From that point, Jordan began traveling to speak with police chiefs across the country about implementing dogs like Glitch and Bear in their departments. At the time, only a few dogs like Bear were in service, but in the years that followed, Jordan said he has graduated about 130 dogs that are located around the world.

Glitch, and other dogs trained by Jordan, spend between three and five months training in what he calls "classes" before they go to their respective police departments. Even before going to their departments, Jordan will have them carry out search warrants in Indiana when he receives calls for help.

"They're actually out doing the work prior to the handler getting here," he said. "I'll work them here in Indiana with the Indiana ICAC. I've got eight dogs in Indiana, but they'll call me for search warrants and I'll bring my dogs that are in training first. Then they use the dogs that are certified to come up and back them up to be sure they got everything. It makes it nicer because I know all the dogs are ready by the time the handlers get here."

The scent that helps the dogs locate electronics is a chemical used on memory chips to prevent them from overheating. By training dogs like Glitch to smell for those chips, they're able to locate many different types of devices.

After his training was complete, and the funding accepted from Operation Underground Railroad, Davis made his way up to Indiana to start training as Glitch's handler.

Glitch comes to Memphis

Glitch now lives in Memphis, and has quickly become a favorite among MPD officers. When he's not searching for devices, Davis said Glitch is either sleeping by his desk or greeting the rest of the officers on the floor.

When Stu and I arrived on the floor and were walked back to the training room, Glitch poked his head out of an office and could be seen with his mouth wide open in what can only be described as a dog grin.

Glitch travels everywhere with Davis. That means coming home with him after a shift, traveling to conferences with him and going on vacation. The constant contact allows Glitch to continue his training, which is the only time he is fed.

Being food motivated, Glitch eats after finding devices. Jordan said this type of eating, which includes small portions of food spread throughout the day, "keeps them more like an athlete and they're in better shape."

Glitch still gets his required food, but working for it means that he will continue to work because he will always be food-motivated. Other dogs can be trained to be motivated by playing, but Jordan said he finds that wears off as an interesting award eventually.

At Davis' house, Glitch has grown close with the family's other two dogs.

"When we get home, he gets a surge of energy," Davis said. "I have kids and other dogs at home. He immediately transitions into a family dog, running around the yard, playing and wanting to be involved in everything we do. Although his energy increases, he is still the same, loving dog at home as he is when he's lying around the office."

Since coming to Memphis, Glitch has gone on 14 different search warrants, and found something each time, though the devices found are not always evidence. But Davis said they would not know if the devices were considered evidence until they're able to look through them. And that would not be possible without Glitch.

When he is out of the office and executing a search warrant, Glitch wears a vest with a gold badge. That badge, Davis said, is worn by all sergeants and lieutenants — who make up the entire ICAC unit at MPD.

"Glitch is one of us, so we didn't want him to feel left out," he said.

At some of those scenes, Glitch's job doesn't stop when he's found all of the devices in the area. Sometimes, he pulls double duty as a therapy dog and can provide comfort to victims who might not want to speak with investigators right away.

Glitch will be with MPD for at least five more years, which is the length of his contract, but Operation Underground Railroad would pay for him to continue to work for MPD after that contract if Glitch does not retire. But, when that time does come for him to retire, Davis hopes Glitch will stay with him.

One thing might change for Glitch when that moment comes around, though.

"I don't think we will make him work for food when he's retired," Davis said.

Lucas Finton is a criminal justice reporter with The Commercial Appeal. He can be reached at Lucas.Finton@commercialappeal.com and followed on X, formerly known as Twitter, @LucasFinton.

This article originally appeared on Memphis Commercial Appeal: Memphis K-9 sniffs out tech, investigates cyber crimes against kids