WCU human remains detection expert Lisa Briggs debunks false HRD K-9 information surrounding Hurricane Helene recovery efforts
Lisa Briggs (right) works with an HRD K-9 and handler during training at WCU.
Lisa Briggs, director of 甜瓜视频app鈥檚 Human Remains Detection K-9 training program and Emergency Disaster Management program, and Edwin Grant, a HRD K-9 program instructor and long-time law enforcement officer, have been deployed with their HRD K-9s since the start of the recovery process for missing persons in Western North Carolina following the devastation left by Hurricane Helene.
During their deployment, Briggs and Grant have been made aware of and want to dispel some of the misinformation that has been circulated as a result of social media posts made by unethical or improperly trained HRD K-9 handlers.
Some of these issues include people self-deploying without being properly trained and with no official agency request, and some who are deploying with official agencies that are using inexperienced K-9s and handlers.
Most alarmingly, fraud is occurring with GoFundMe pages related to K-9 handlers.
鈥淓xamples of this fraud can be found on social media,鈥� Briggs said. 鈥淯nethical behavior from handlers, such as trying to raise money and diverting needed resources for personal gain during a disaster, is completely unacceptable.鈥�
Lisa Briggs (left) working with a HRD K-9 and handler during a recent training at WCU.
Self-promotion of these handlers on social media is also widespread, as is the misinformation being shared about the untrue recoveries.
If a handler is marking an area where their dog gave a trained final response to the odor of human remains and leaves that area before the body is confirmed, calling that a find of human remains spreads misinformation and diverts limited resources.
This misinformation also gives false hope to the family of the victims.
鈥淎gency resources are being diverted to double check what is in fact a false alert by some of these handlers,鈥� Briggs said. 鈥淭hese examples are many, but a quick example includes one individual making false claims about human victim recoveries that were not verified before the handler left.
鈥淭hese findings turned out to be remains from a cow and a horse. This misinformation escalated to where people, who were missing loved ones, had to wait for days for the debris piles to be searched because of the self-promotion and false information about human remains being discovered there.鈥�
Briggs and Grant are being pulled away from urgent recovery operations to cross-check improperly trained handlers and K-9s and self-proclaimed handlers who could sadly be here for hero glorification.
Some of the numbers of recoveries being posted are simply not true. They may also be reporting the number of trained final responses that their K-9 gave as actual recoveries and not the actual number of human bodies their K-9 was responsible for locating.
There is a huge difference.
Lisa Briggs (front left) with her K-9 Onna and team.
鈥淲e have instances where handlers are reporting victim recoveries by their K-9s only to be confirmed that the K9s are alerting on non-human remains, even dog remains,鈥� Grant said. 鈥淭his is causing an insurmountable degree of unnecessary work. In one case, a handler called in that his canine had located five victims in one location. What was verified is that the 鈥榟uman finger鈥� that his dog provided a final response to the odor of human remains was in fact a fishing lure.鈥�
The K-9s are also incorrectly alerting to animal bones or other debris.
鈥淭he other 鈥榲ictims' were old deer bones or pieces of wood,鈥� Briggs said. 鈥淚n regard to false indications, some law enforcement K-9 handlers and search and rescue handlers are wrongly rewarding their K-9s on animal carcasses and bones, incorrectly assuming they are human remains.鈥�
Briggs shares that this creates a huge problem not only in the reliability of the K-9s during this disaster, but in the trustworthiness of these handlers and their K-9s moving forward.
鈥淭his is a handler error that is hard to recover from once the K-9 has been imprinted and rewarded on a non-human remains odor,鈥� she said. 鈥淥f course, the K-9s will then give final responses to odors that are not human remains. It is also discerning to see HRD K-9s working on a lead.
鈥淲e all must be accountable for our actions, which includes our K-9s. Anything that we do to further harm an already devastated community is unacceptable, and those handlers need to leave and stop making posts on social media. Appreciation is given to those handlers who are examples of the ethical and proper way to contribute during this time of devastation.鈥�
