ORANGEBURG, S.C. — Students will soon see a new furry face on campus.
South Carolina State University has partnered with Global K9 Protection Group to acquire a gun sniffing dog on campus.
The new security measure will cost the university between $25,000 and $30,000 dollars and President Alexander Conyers said it’s money well spent.
“There’s a cost at everything,” said President Conyers. “And I as I stand here I can’t imagine what cost would have prevented me from doing this today.”
The protection group has K9’s at schools across the country such as Notre Dame, Auburn University and even the University of South Carolina.
The dog will be able to recognize explosives, firearms and ammunition on campus. President Conyers said that this will be helpful at major events.
“So anytime we think there may be a threat we will utilize this capability but obviously also as a deterrent we will use this in parking lots at night to make sure there are no weapons on our campus we will use this at the stadium for football games, perhaps basketball games,” said President Conyers. “Anywhere where there’s a crowd anywhere where there may be a threat where someone may have an illegal weapon on this campus, we want to find that person and get that person off of this campus.”
Destiney Humphries is a student at SC State and says students will get used to the new addition.
“I can understand you know the fear just simply because the history between the Black community and police and police dogs,” said Humphries. “But I believe the more they kind of get use to her on campus and the more that they see her and they see that tailing wagging they think they’ll start to kinda minimize their own individual fears and they’ll kinda be more comfortable with her."
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Daniel McAfree from K9 Protection Group says the type of dog, a Labrador Retriever, was a purposeful choice.
“Labradors are a very friendly breed, they’re very social with people they’re not scary looking. You’re looking at flight or fright method where you step on a dogs toe what’s the dog going to do,” said McAfree. “So you’re looking at the liability of a dog biting so you’re using a friendly looking dog most likely a Labrador is going to squeal and not going to do anything.
On Monday, an SC State officer will be heading to Auburn, Alabama for the required four week training with the university’s new gun sniffing dog.