Ohio Cops Employ Dog Named Reptar To Sniff Out Child Pornography

To fight child pornography and to sniff out child porn, Ohio’s police department has employed a special agent to the squad — a Labrador retriever named Reptar, CBS News reported.

The 22-month-old Reptar is trained in sniffing out hidden electronic devices, chips, and memory cards.

The Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation (BCI) says Reptar has been given specialized training which allows him to detect chemical traces in electronic devices including computers, mobile phones, laptops, iPads, and USB devices.

Reptar also assists BCI’s Crimes Against Children unit and helps them track potential pedophiles, the report stated.

On Friday, Ohio’s Attorney General Mike DeWine said Reptar has also been given special training as a comfort dog. A comfort dog or a therapy dog is the one which is trained to provide affection to people in hospitals, retirement homes, hospices, disaster areas and also those suffering from depression, anxiety, autism or any kind of mental illness.

DeWine also said that Reptar is trained to pick up the scent when he finds chemicals in storage devices and that his nose is about 40 times more sensitive than human beings.

Reptar was introduced to people at a press conference Friday in Columbus. The press conference was preceded by DeWine and BCI special agent Josh Rammel.

Addressing the press conference, Rammel said he has named Reptar after a green dinosaur character from the cartoon “Rugrats.” Reptar lives with Rammel who is his trainer and handler.

“He can search the most cluttered home or the biggest vehicle and find the smallest electronic device with storage capabilities. He finds the devices that are hidden in plain sight and the ones that are purposely concealed because the suspect does not want us to find them. Grant money covered the $11,000 bill for training Reptar,” DeWine said.

“Criminals have an amazing ability to hide this stuff,” he added.

“You can run, but you can no longer hide from Reptar’s highly-skilled nose which can sniff out even the smallest devices in the biggest rooms or vehicles. We are committed to finding the latest crime-fighting tools in order to protect Ohio families. Reptar has already proven valuable in some criminal investigations, finding devices hidden from investigators and we know he will continue to help us hold criminals accountable. Reptar is one of two dogs in Ohio trained to sniff out specific chemicals found in electronic storage devices and one of about 50 worldwide trained to do so,” DeWine said.

Working as a police dog for nearly two months, Reptar has sniffed out a small memory card that was hidden in a drawer by attaching it to a false bottom. Police officers issued a search warrant of the house near Youngstown while working on a child pornography case. As they entered the house, Reptar started his work and found out the memory card in no time.

In a similar way, he has also found a cell phone which was stashed in a toilet inside a state prison in Ohio, the Dayton Daily News reported.