St. Anthony Police Department raising funds to buy K9 to help officers

ST. ANTHONY — A police department is asking for the communities help in raising funds to add a four-legged member to their force.

The St. Anthony Police Department is working on getting a K9 that will be certified in narcotics detection, tracking to help officers make an impact on drug trafficking and sales, and tracking lost children or vulnerable adults.

“Almost four years ago now, we had a K9 leave with his former handler and go to another department and since then, we haven’t had a K9 in our department and before that, it had been probably eight-plus years before we had one previously,” said Hunter Gregory, a police officer with the St. Anthony Police Department.

Gregory told EastIdahoNews.com the K9 the department plans on getting will be a Labrador retriever from Pacific Coast K9 located in Custer, Washington. The company specializes in quality police detection and security K9s. He said the company is used by a majority of departments in the state to acquire K9s.

The cost of the dog is $5,500 and Gregory hopes to get the dog within the next month and a half.

“The reason behind (getting the K9) is that we have done some analyzing of our statistics and we’ve seen a steady rise in the number of narcotics and paraphernalia incidents and arrests,” he said. “Just this last year from 2020 to 2021, we had just over a 500% increase in that and previously we were only going up by 15% or 20%.”

There are other costs associated with the K9 including $2,300 in training and $1,500 in equipment. Gregory explained the St. Anthony Police Department is reaching out to several resources and foundations, including the National Association of Chiefs of Police, to get grants.

“(The K9) would be extremely beneficial. Right now, there are several different applications that we plan on using the K9 for that we’ve seen a need for. One is on patrol but also in the schools as well as our corrections facilities,” said Gregory. “We want to not only educate but also prevent narcotics from entering these facilities and developing addictions in the schools with the students.”

Fundraisers within the community are in the making but right now, Gregory has created a GoFundMe for the police department where anyone can donate. To donate or learn more, call the city of St. Anthony at (208) 624-3494.