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The retirement of Westchester County Police Detective Brett Hochron and his partner, Harley the Cyber Dog, was announced on Monday, July 1.
According to County Executive George Latimer, the duo spent much of their careers sniffing out hidden digital devices in search of evidence for investigations, including SIM cards, thumb drives, hard drives, cell phones, tablets, laptop computers, and other digital storage devices.
Since joining together in 2017, Hochron and Harley worked on several investigations conducted by county, local, and federal law enforcement agencies and found evidence for cases involving financial fraud, child pornography, organized crime, gang activity, and counter-terrorism.
During much of this work, the duo worked alongside the Department of Probation's Sex Offender Unit, Probation Commissioner Rocco Pozzi said.
"Convicted sex offenders, as a condition of their probation, are often prohibited from possessing pornography, and they can even be prohibited from possessing a computer or any other digital device," Pozzi explained, adding, "Detective Hochron and Harley have assisted us in many sex offender investigations and home visits to find electronic devices that were hidden by these offenders."
Because of the duo's successful collaboration, county officials said that their next electronics canine would be assigned to the Probation Department. However, it will still be available when requested by other law enforcement agencies.
The county's new cyber canine handler will be Supervisory Probation Officer Stephen Denaro, Pozzi announced.
As for Denaro's K9 partner, they will be selected with help from Guiding Eyes for the Blind. The dog will then be sent for six weeks of training at the Connecticut State Police Academy, which identified the common chemical used in digital products and came up with the methods for electronic storage detection.
Once the canine's training is finished, it will join Denaro for six weeks of training together as a team.
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