SACRAMENTO, Calif. — There's a new sheriff coming to town. Well, sort of. The two newest members of the TSA security team are a 2.5-year-old German Shorthaired Pointer and a 2-year-old German Shephard.
If you happen to be traveling out of SMF airport in the near future, you will likely see these furry friends.
"TSA is pleased to be partnering with the Sacramento County Sheriff's Department to have these explosive canines detection working in the security checkpoint," said Lori Dankers, spokeswoman for TSA.
The canines go through an extensive training program and will be used to detect explosives from passengers or guests. Due to the new partnership, there will be law enforcement handlers with the dogs instead of TSA agents. The reason for this is because of the great relationship between the two parties.
"Using these TSA Canines, and having our law enforcement partner, these resources we already had in place, it allows us to leverage that," said Dankers.
TSA has already rolled out this new program in four other cities across the nation. They decided to bring it to Sacramento because of the resources and great relationships they have with the sheriff's department here.
"The overall objective is that this [is] an added level of security. We want the airport to be secure. We want our passengers and guests here at the airport to know that we are working to keep this facility secure," explained Sgt. Shaun Hampton with the Sacramento County Sheriff's office.
There's no exact date on when this new program will officially start, however, ABC10 is told that it's set to begin within the next two weeks.
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