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.

By Christine Dempsey

Source Hartford Courant

March 31, 2022

2 min read

Connecticut State Police K-9 Selma, the world's first

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.

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