I first started at the Bemidji (Minn.) Pioneer as an intern in the summer of 1996. That would begin six years as a news reporter, sports reporter and copy editor for a small, six-day-per-week daily newspaper in northern Minnesota. I wrote a large range of stories from multiple beats, to features to sports, my favorite being the coverage of the Red Lake Reservation High School basketball team named the Warriors. Here is a collection of my stories from my time at the Pioneer.
Jan. 29, 2000
By Devlyn Brooks
The Cass County Sheriff's Department soon will join the ranks of local law enforcement agencies which have a K-9 unit, according to Chief Deputy Randy Fisher.
Deputy Jason Anderson and a canine partner will receive training in Colorado, Fisher said, and be on patrol, hopefully, by April 1.
The project -- paid for by both donations and money from the county's general fund -- will cost about $10,000 for the dog, Anderson's training and equipment.
"This is going to increase our service," Fisher said, "and our law enforcement agency's effectiveness in dealing with a number of types of calls."
Canine units have proven effective in searching for missing people, apprehending fugitives, and identifying and detecting controlled substances, he said.
This won't be the first time Cass County has had a canine patrol, according to the chief deputy. Cass County Investigator Mike Diekmann, who at one time was a deputy, had a canine unit, but that was more than a decade ago.
"We've used surrounding counties' K-9 units in the past year in controlled substance investigations and to look for lost people," Fisher said. "We had two officers interested in becoming a K-9 patrol, and we had a way to get a dog and training. So we decided to go ahead with it."
Fisher said that once the department has some experience working with its first K-9 unit in a decade, the sheriff's department may explore establishing a second unit for the southern end of Cass County. Anderson mainly patrols northern Cass County.
Cass will become the third county in the Bemidji region to have a K-9 unit. The Beltrami and Hubbard sheriff's departments have one each, and so do the Bagley and Grand Rapids police departments.
Anyone interested in donating money to Cass County to help defray the costs of the K-9 unit may still do so, Fisher said. For more information, call Cass County Sheriff Jim Dowson at (800) 450-2677.
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