Nikole Babb
nbabb@cherryroad.com
The Butler County Sheriff’s Office, (BCSO), shared numbers from their 2024 year-end report at the December 10 Butler County Commission meeting. The report delves into many numeric factors including how much the agency’s K9’s were utilized, how much property as recovered through the Flock Safety cameras, what the Career Criminal Unit recovered, how many warrants were received and returned.
The BCSO owns five agency K9s in total, which include four Malinois and one bloodhound. The K9s were deployed 398 times for different incidents between 2021-2024. Of those incidents, 160 of them ended with drug seizures, 117 arrests, 19 found missing people, and two arrests that involved a bite.
K9 Lego, (Malinois), joined the agency in 2022 and is trained in tracking, evidence recovery, apprehension, handler protection.and and drug sniffing for narcotics and fentanyl. Lego’s handler is Deputy Chip Weber.
K9 Radar, (Malinois), joined the agency in 2023 and is trained to sniff out narcotics, fentanyl, evidence recovery, apprehension and handler protection. Radar’s handler is Deputy James Nelson.
K9 Xena, (Malinois), joined the agency in 2022 and is trained in drug sniffing narcotics, fentanyl, handler protection, apprehension, and evidence recovery. Xena’s handler is Deputy Steven Parker.
K9 Bandit, (Malinois), is trained in drug sniffing narcotics, fentanyl, apprehension, handler protection and evidence recovery. Bandit’s handler is Joel McLaughlin.
K9 Boone, (Bloodhound), joined the agency in 2022 and is trained only in human tracking. They agency always describes him as they agency “hillbilly”, for his goofy personality and unwavering ability to lick a missing person to death when he finds them. Boone’s handler is Deputy Garret Hinz.
The agency purchased the Flock Safety cameras in 2024 with an investment of $34,000 for 10 cameras. That cost included installation and first year usage. Per year costs are estimated to be $30,000. The cameras are used to take still images of vehicles as they drive by that show the back of the vehicle and license plate. Those images are only pulled for criminal cases and require a case number to be accessed. According to the report, the BCSO used the cameras to successfully recover $421,000 of stolen property, make 29 arrests and seize six pounds of controlled substances.
Through the agency’s Career Criminal Unit, (CCU), which is comprised of five deputies and a Sergeant who target specific cases and areas of crime to locate illegal drugs and stolen property. The team also assists the Cold Case Unit, Road Patrol, and other agency units as needed. During their year of work they’ve recovered $73,500 of stolen property and 1,571.39 grams of controlled substances, broken down into he following categories:
Methamphetamine: 163.93 grams
Marijuana: 1231.80 grams
THC wax: 172.46 grams
Psilocybin: 3.2 grams
Fentanyl: 25 dosage units
Morphine: 7 dosage units
Drug proceeds: $33,564 in cash
Recovered property: $90,605
Cases: 15
Narcotics arrests: 29
Warrant arrests: 21
Intel reports: 36
The BCSO Civils and Warrants Unit includes two civil deputies, two warrant deputies and a lead Sergeant. The team received 979 warrants and returned 1,012 in 2024. They made 236 custody arrests. The team received 9,126 civil papers and returned 9,084. In 2022 the unit received 1,044 warrants and returned 1,083 with 232 custody arrests. The team received 7,963 civil papers and returned 7,927.
The agency’s Cold Case Unit reorganized in 2022 with the intent to reopen and close remaining cold cases. Through hard detective work, the suspect in the German Clerici murder case was arrested and extradited from South Carolina. He was then prosecuted and charged 14 years after the initial murder and is now serving time in prison.
Butler County Sheriff Monty Hughey indicated he was ready to enter into 2025 with the same aggressive progress, commitment, protection and investment into the agency employees as well as the community.
