The Aiken Department of Public Safety's newest officer is looking to take a bite out of crime — particularly drug crime.
"Sandman," a Belgian Tervuren whose focus is on narcotics detection, has been on patrol for a couple of weeks with his handler, Public Safety Officer Robbie Cue. He is named after Master Cpl. Sandy Rogers, who was killed in the line of duty in January 2012.
'Something she wanted me to do'
Rogers' sister, Virginia Johnson, wanted to donate a new police K9 in memory of her sister, and started the fundraising efforts last spring.
"She loved the K9s up here," Johnson said as she sat at the Aiken Department of Public Safety. "I was told several times by some of the K9 people up here that they had to tell Sandy, 'Get out of the car. The dog needs to work.' She loved playing with them and loving on them. I just felt like that was something she wanted me to do."
Johnson led multiple efforts to raise the nearly $9,000 required to purchase the dog and pay for training, including selling T-shirts, decals and rubber bracelets. Some people dropped donations off at Johnson's business, Jack Rogers Tire.
Operation Sandman was the recipient of proceeds from the Pep Rally in The Alley, a college football kickoff that held its inaugural event in August and plans to designate a different local charity to benefit each year.
"A lot of people have really helped us," Johnson said. "I was very surprised at how quickly we did get the money together."
Chief Charles Barranco said Aiken Public Safety now has three police K9s, but is looking to purchase a fourth dog so they can have one on each of the four shifts.
'They're basically training us'
Sandman is the second police K-9 to make his debut at Aiken Public Safety this year. In February, "Scooter" took to the streets.
Named after Master Public Safety Officer Scotty Richardson, who was killed in the line of duty barely a month before Rogers, Scooter was purchased with a grant from the Ben Roethlisberger Foundation.
Like Scooter, Sandman's focus is narcotics detection, specifically marijuana, cocaine, heroin and methamphetamine. Narcotics-detection K9s are trained to locate the sources of smells if they detect a narcotic, and to "alert" whenever they find it.
"It gives you another tool to get some drugs off the street," Cue said. "The drugs affect not only the person who's using them, but everybody else. If we can get that off the streets, it'll be a better place."
Sandman and Cue spent three weeks in training at Custom Canine Unlimited in Maysville, Georgia, where they not only worked on drills, detecting smells and learning commands in Dutch, but also forming their bond.
"One of the trainers said when we first got there, the dogs are already trained. They're basically training us to work with them," Cue said. "If you don't bond with them, they're not going to listen to you. Once you get with him, love him up and he loves you back - he'll do anything for you."
Sandman will get plenty of socialization living with Cue, who has four children.
"My 1- and 2-year-old try to ride him," Cue said with a laugh.
'Here comes Sandman'
Johnson said the money left over from purchasing Sandman and paying for his and Cue's training will go toward feeding and caring for the dog. When she first approached Barranco last year about getting a dog named in her sister's memory, she said her only requests were that she could pay for it and that the dog would be named Sandman, a family nickname for Rogers.
Sandy's brother, Jimmie Rogers, said, "We used to play cowboys and indians, cops and robbers, and she just roughhoused, I just named her Sandman: Here comes Sandman, watch out!"
Johnson said she's pleased with how friendly and energetic Sandman is, and said she's "been on a high" since getting the call Tuesday that he'd arrived.
"He's here now," she said while watching Sandman tug on a chew toy in Cue's hand. "It's nothing we have to keep dreaming about. He's actually here."
Teddy Kulmala covers the crime and courts beat for the Aiken Standard and has been with the newspaper since August 2012. He is a native of Williston and majored in communication studies at Clemson University.