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Died 3/30/22
Handler – Detective George Jupin
Conn. State Police K-9—World’s 1st Electronic-Sniffing Dog—Dies
Selma became an electronics storage device detection K-9 for the Connecticut State Police in 2013 and was trained to detect certain chemicals in electronics that criminals may toss or hide. The world’s first electronics-sniffing police dog, state police K-9 Selma, has died, according to the Connecticut State Police. She died of medical problems on Wednesday, troopers said. Selma became the first electronics storage device detection K-9 on Oct. 4, 2013. The dogs are trained to detect certain chemicals in electronics that criminals may toss or hide. Such dogs “can track anything from a USB to a cellphone to a laptop,” Trooper Pedro Muniz said Thursday. For example, he said, if a suspect has child porn on a hard drive hidden behind a wall, the specially-trained dogs can find it. Or if a suspect crashes a car, tosses a cellphone into the woods and runs away, the K-9s can smell the device.The Connecticut State Police K-9 Unit is the first in the world to train dogs in the detection of computer equipment. A chemist at the state forensic lab, Dr. Jack Hubbal, isolated a chemical compound that surrounds memory boards in all phones and computers, and another compound that was discovered on DVDs, CDs and floppy disks. K-9 trainers used the two compounds to train computer K-9 teams to search for electronic devices, the state police said. Selma and her handler, Det. George Jupin, were graduates of the 161st K-9 Training Troop.Selma is the third police dog in the state to die recently. On Saturday, Enfield’s high-achieving K-9, Nova, died, and Bristol police announced Tuesday that K-9 Murphy died.
