Ybarra Academy students inspired by career day
Achilles latched onto the suspect’s arm and dragged him to the ground as anxious students looked on at Ybarra Academy in Rowland Heights.
The big German shepherd held the man down so his partner Ismael Flores could safely take him into custody. Welcome to the K-9 unit from the Los Angeles Port Police.
Lt. Rosa Reynoso brought two K-9 teams to her sister’s school to show the students how police officers operate.
“I think the children need to see good role models, so I was happy to come to career day and talk to my sister’s class,” Reynoso said.
Officer Flores explained how they use their canine companions to look for drugs and people.
“We use our dogs as location tools. They help us find the bad guys who are hiding from us,” Flores said.
“Do you like the smell of pizza? Well, our dogs have a great sense of smell and can smell every different ingredient you put on your pizza,” the officer added.
Officer Alfred Moya had his 3-year-old partner Andrew demonstrate his powerful sense of smell. The K-9 cop sniffed around the outside of the boy’s rest room, finding a box of marijuana hidden earlier by Moya under a set of pipes.
“Our dogs like to search for drugs and people. That’s what we do every day at the Port of Los Angeles,” Moya said.
The officers warned the children not to pet the dogs in blue because the German shepherds were their partners not pets.
The K-9 crew were just three of the interesting speakers featured at career day. Officers from ATF, LAPD and the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department also talked to the students.
One of the more sobering speakers was an emergency room nurse from Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in Fontana. Alona Roldan talked about working with life and death situations every day.
“I’ve worked in the emergency room for seven years and been a nurse for 11 years,” Roldan told Brenda Noriega’s seventh-grade class.
The nurse in scrubs said the emergency room treats 6,000 to 8,000 patients every month.
“We’re always very busy and it can be challenging,” Roldan said. Click HERE for entire story!