If you heard barking late Wednesday afternoon, no there weren’t a bunch of cute puppies at Wellness Wednesday, instead, it was LAPD’s K9 Units. At 9:20 AM on Wednesday, April 10, an LMU alert with the message came out: “There is an LAPD K9 training drill at Sunken Garden late this afternoon. Avoid the area around the Sunken Garden. Please note this is only a training exercise.” Many students like Henry Lahey were out tanning in Sunken Garden “The weather’s so nice… why wouldn’t you? Similar sentiments were echoed by Freshman Morgan Copeland “It’s the sunniest and best place on campus to tan.” Some students like freshman Macklin Gifford didn’t realize there was going to be police business on campus today.
Other students were apprehensive and worried that K9 would lead to the confiscation of their smoking devices. Eventually around 2:30 PM, Two LAPD K9 units arrived on campus and parked at the Sacred Heart Chapel lot.
With the weather so favorable LAPD K9 officer, Sunny Sasajima said “We initially were going to go out to Sunken Garden but we saw too many students and didn’t want to disturb their zen moment.”Due to that the officers decided to move their operations to the trails along the bluff and begin a sweep starting around the Mbongi Spot and proceed along to the Sacred Heart Chapel. According to Sasajima the K9s are getting acclimated and accustomed to the area ahead of commencement. The exercise was also good for the officers as some hadn’t been to the LMU Campus before. Coincidentally two of the officers had some familiarity with the grounds as they were LMU alumni: Officer Keith Grogan and Jeremy Cohen had graduated in 1989 and 2003 respectively.
After all the officers situated themselves they sent the dogs out to do a simulated check of substances and find problematic spots along the trail.
The officers eventually concluded Wednesday afternoon’s drill by conducting a similar training exercise at Seaver Hall.
