Bomb-sniffing NYPD K-9s, handlers honored at French consulate for beefing up Paris Olympics security
Four NYPD officers and their bomb-sniffing canine partners were honored for their service safeguarding the Paris Olympics at a ceremony at the French consulate in Manhattan Monday afternoon.
Police Officers Rafael De La Cruz and Michael Fenimore and Detectives Nick Valez and Andrew Barron — and their hero dogs Davie, Gunner, Rico and Vito — received distinctive service awards at the Upper East Side delegation commemorating their service protecting last summer's international games.
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4 Michael Finamore and his dog Gunner (who passed away), Andrew Barron and his dog Vito, Nicholas Velez and his dog Rico and Rafael De La Cruz and his dog Davie received awards.
James Messerschmidt
The K-9 teams were tasked with patrolling the Paris Games' grounds and keeping a nose out for bombs, consulate reps said.
'The challenges were enormous in Paris last summer to ensure the safety of 15,000 athletes, 45,000 volunteers, and overall, 11 million spectators,' Consul General Céderik Fouriscot said to the officers.
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'The Paris game went off perfectly, and I want to say that you are an integral part of this success.'
The massive undertaking to host the Olympics required French authorities to call on foreign law enforcement.
4 The K-9 teams were tasked with patrolling the Paris Games' grounds and keeping a nose out for bombs.
Instagram/@k_9_gunner
French authorities' liaison to the NYPD Police Commander Jean-François Meunier noted the host country 'asked especially for dogs because we didn't have enough dogs to cover all the Olympic sites.'
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The NYPD officers and their dogs are specially trained to locate bombs, with K-9s assigned the critical duty of sniffing out chemicals associated with explosives.
'We take the odor and tie it to a toy, like a ball, and it's just repetition. The odor is just different chemical explosives,' said honoree Valez, 52, who has since retired from the force — as well as his K-9 Rico.
4 The massive undertaking to host the Olympics required French authorities to call on foreign law enforcement.
James Messerschmidt
Absent from the ceremony was Fenimore's dog, Gunner, who died in February.
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Fenimore, who has since moved from the NYPD to the Clarkstown Police Department in Rockland County, said the loss of his four-legged friend deeply affected him.
'He was a perfectly healthy German Shepherd. Got blood cancer and was gone in three months. It's been brutal. He was my buddy for six years. He was the greatest dog. He was my life,' Fenimore said.
4 The NYPD officers and their dogs are specially trained to locate bombs.
Instagram/@k_9_gunner
Paris is one of five overseas posts the NYPD outsources assistance to, in addition to London, Madrid, INTERPOL and EUROPOL.
'It's operational exchange, information sharing. Share best practices and this is done on a daily basis,' Detective Nicolas Gouzien, the NYPD's liaison to Paris and Monaco said.
'This is a great inflection point in our relationship between NYPD and French law enforcement. This was an opportunity to showcase specialty capabilities that the NYPD has and the whole world was watching our canines protect the games in an incredibly complex threat environment,' Deputy Commissioner Rebecca Weiner said.
'It was a tremendous honor and opportunity for the NYPD.'
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