Policeman's Best Friend

No doubt you guessed from the title that this story is going to be about a drug-sniffing dog that helped a police officer make an important drug bust. If so, you guessed right.

But it wasn’t just any drug bust – it was the drug bust, meaning one of the biggest drug busts to ever occur in the Albany, Oregon police department’s history.

It all started on Tuesday, October 18, 2011 at 8:28 a.m. The Oregon State Police stopped a white 1994 Ford F150 pickup truck on southbound Interstate 5 just outside of Albany, because of erratic driving: not staying in his lane. It was just odd enough for the police officer to decide to check. He grew suspicious.

A drug dog named Hutch was called to the scene and he sniffed out a brick of methamphetamine that weighed more than a pound. It had been hidden inside of a common household item that was not identified. Albany police officer Aaron Davis said that, “Ninety-nine cops out of 100” would not have suspected the item contained a controlled substance, but the dog found it. They also found over $100,000 in cash, and collected some records of the “business,” some cell phones, and some drug-packaging supplies.

The 29 year old man who was arrested was Jesus Bruno-Sanchez, from Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Vancouver police subsequently obtained a search warrant for the man’s Vancouver home which they searched on Tuesday night. Bruno-Sanchez faces charges of unlawful meth possession and delivery and two conspiracy counts as well, and that’s just on this side of the border. In addition to that, Immigration and Customs Enforcement believe that he might also have been in the United States illegally.

Office Davis gave the credit where credit was due. “This is the largest bust in APD history. Without the use of the canine, there is a good chance it would not have been found.”

Some credit should also go to the Oregon State Police officer who noticed the poor driving and pulled the driver over to check things out. Besides ridding our community of those drugs, he may have stopped an accident from happening as well.