The Missouri Region "C" Technical Rescue Team K-9 Division has a firm commitment to the protection of the community by providing services to find and assist people in distress, and relieve pain and suffering in it's many forms by providing a quality, professional search and rescue life safety service.
To support this doctrine, we recognize the following strategies:
Our commitment to, and location within the community give the team opportunity to be involved in the full community by:
- Working aggressively to deliver fire and life safety education
- Responding promptly to fires, rescues, medical emergencies, disasters (natural and manmade)
- Ensuring that the actions of the team are safe, professional, and in harmony with the demands of the community.
The K-9 Team's reliance on its members to provide these services requires:
- That each individuals value to the team is duly recognized
- That said individual is treated ethically, provided training, proper equipment, support, safety and opportunity
- Each individual is accountable to other team members in the division, their sponsoring departments and the public in general
This mission statement serves as a focal point for planning, developing, implementing, delivering, evaluating, and managing organizational activities.
Since its inception in 1996, the MO Region "C" Technical Rescue Team's K9 Division has recruited its members based on three criteria:
- A strong commitment to the general public
- Field of expertise
- Professional experience
Because of this broad and colorful spectrum of professional members, the Region "C" K9 Division is called to respond by legal entities to a wide variety of emergency situations under any number of adverse conditions. Wilderness and urban searches have included; lost children, lost Alzheimer's patients, homicides, suicides, and drowning, as well as fire and crime scenes.
While some of these searches have led to "finds", others have simply "ruled out" specific areas. Still, we consider all of our endeavors successful because we are committed to the victims and their families, the search for truth, and the peace of mind that only closure can provide.
To Activate the Team, Public Service agencies should contact North Central Fire Alarm at 314-428-1122.
Below are the participating departments of the team, click on them to view their websites:
Since its inception the team has:
- Responded to over 400 calls for assistance
- Seen over 25,000 children and adults during public relation events
- Acted as a mascot for the Missouri's Children's Burn Camp
- Was instrumental in getting legislation enacted to protect working dogs
- Only K-9 team to be enlisted by the FBI for evidence recovery
- Only K-9 team to receive Exceptional Service awards presented by the director of the FBI
- Received several awards presented by the German Sheppard Club
Since its inception the team has participated in:
- Finding and recovering 16 drowning victims
- Finding a lost child in Warren County
- Finding 2 lost adolescents in Montgomery County
- 1 first degree murder conviction due to evidence recovered by K-9s
- 3 second degree murder convictions due to evidence recovery
- Location of human remains at the Governor's Plan crash site
- Locating 7 suicide victims
- Numerous rule out locations for forensic evidence