Stuart Morrison, Staff Writer
Officer Jackson received a call from the Cobb County Police Department K-9 Unit in reference to assisting with a bomb threat at a Home Depot in Austell on Oct. 9. He arrived on the scene and assisted with finishing a sweep of the parking lot, then was asked to search a few areas with the police dog, K-9 Amar.
K-9 Amar showed some interest in one area; however, he did not go into trained final alert.
K-9 Amar was later deployed on a Chevrolet Suburban, and he went into a final trained alert on the vehicle. Another officer requested that K-9 Amar sniff the vehicle to confirm the alert. K-9 Amar had a noticeable change in behavior when approaching the vehicle and began sniffing the vehicle on his own. The other officer advised that based on the behavior of K-9 Amar and other dogs alerting on the vehicle that it was a possible safety concern.
The Cobb County Bomb Squad was already on the scene and deployed to investigate the vehicle by this time. The bomb squad did not find any devices in the vehicle. K-9 Amar was deployed once again but did not show a change in behavior.
The dog did not go into a trained final alert when sniffing the items, but he did have a change in behavior and breathing in the same area as before when the vehicle was closed up, though not as strong as before. An officer spoke with the driver of the Suburban after the check was completed. The driver said her husband works in the textile industry, and that they had transported carpet and wood flooring in their Suburban within the last weeks.
The officer said that there is new information that some textiles have some of the same component make up as Trinitrotoluene or TNT. Officers were unable to confirm what the dogs alerted to, but all four dogs alerted on the same place on the vehicle.
