Southwest
Texas shelter dog becomes impressive police K-9 as he combats fentanyl crisis
A shelter dog has found a new mission in life as a drug-sniffing police K-9 — a transformation that took place just months after the pup was rescued from the streets of Fort Worth, Texas.
“If you talk to me in five years, I guarantee you we’re going to have kilos of records to reflect his service to the city,” Sgt. Charles Hubbard of the Fort Worth Police Department told Fox News Digital.
Rock, a long and dark-coated German shepherd mix, is part of narcotics detection operations that have taken hundreds of thousands of pills off the streets — making him a vital tool in combating today’s fentanyl crisis.
PENNSYLVANIA K-9 WHO HELPED CATCH CONVICTED MURDERER RETIRES AFTER EIGHT YEARS OF SERVICE: ‘HE LOVED TO WORK’
“I’m talking 20,000, 100,000, 500,000 pills off the street before they ever get out into our community,” Hubbard said of the role narcotics detection K-9s play in law enforcement.
Last summer, then-six-month-old Rock was found wandering around the city with his sister.
Rock is photographed shortly after arriving at the Fort Worth Animal Control’s Chuck & Brenda Silcox Animal Care & Adoption Center in Fort Worth, Texas. (Sgt. Charles Hubbard, Fort Worth Police Department)
The dogs were brought to the Fort Worth Animal Control’s Chuck & Brenda Silcox Animal Care & Adoption Center, where shelter superintendent Anastasia Ramsey recognized that the two pups were special.
“We took them out in the yard, and we did some tennis ball exercises where we tossed the ball to see if they had any interest,” Ramsey said — adding that she and her team tossed the dogs treats to see if they were able to “learn things quickly.”
MICHIGAN K-9’S MUGSHOT GOES VIRAL AFTER POLICE ACCUSE PUP OF STEALING OFFICER’S LUNCH
“Rock passed with flying colors,” she said.
“He just blew everything out of the water.”
Sgt. Charles Hubbard, left, is shown beside Officer Kristopher Thompson, right, who is the Fort Worth Police Department’s K-9 team trainer. (Sgt. Charles Hubbard, Fort Worth Police Department)
Ramsey’s own husband is a K-9 police officer with the Dallas Police Department, so she said she’s aware of what law enforcement is looking for in a K-9 dog.
She recorded videos of Rock and his sister — and the team from Fort Worth Police Department then took the pair for a two-week trial.
“Anastasia [Ramsey] has got a good eye,” Hubbard said.
AFTER CAMPUS SHOOTING AT MICHIGAN STATE, K-9 BRINGS COMFORT TO TRAUMATIZED STUDENTS
“She knows the traits that we’re looking for … We trusted what she was evaluating out there and everything that she believed proved true because both Rock and his sister completed narcotics training,” Hubbard said.
Rock was only six months old when he was rescued from the streets in Fort Worth. He was then brought into the Fort Worth Police Department. (Sgt. Charles Hubbard, Fort Worth Police Department)
The officers decided that with Rock’s high energy and high prey-and-hunt drive, the pup would definitely be a fit and would excel.
“You want a dog that’s going to want to go to work every day,” Hubbard said.
TEXAS K9 IS AWARDED PURPLE HEART AFTER SURVIVING OFFICER-INVOLVED SHOOTING: ‘BRAVERY AND PURPOSE’
“And I’ll tell you what, every time I get him out of the car, and even when he’s at home off duty — when he comes out of his kennel, he’s sniffing.”
Hubbard said Rock wants to sniff cars, boxes — anything he can get his nose on.
“We can’t do this job without a K-9 like him. It’s the most effective way for us to combat fentanyl, heroin, meth, cocaine, all of it.”
“That’s the most desired trait — that you don’t have to work your dog up,” Hubbard said. “You’re not always saying, ‘Buddy, let’s go, let’s go.’ You just get him out, and he’s ready to go.”
Rock’s sister, Jade, while just as smart, turned out to have a softer personality. She was placed as a school resource K-9.
“Rock is super friendly, very fun-loving,” Ramsey said.
Rock is a ball full of energy and loves going to work every day, always ready to sniff anything and everything. (Sgt. Charles Hubbard, Fort Worth Police Department)
“He seems to enjoy working. He has a lot of energy. And so, pairing those types of dogs with someone who can give them something to do, like a police department, is instrumental in making sure that we set those dogs up for success,” she said.
Rock continued to show his skills. He soon went to work with Hubbard as his handler in a specialized segment of narcotics called K-9 interdiction.
WASHINGTON POLICE DOG RETIRING AFTER NABBING 166 SUSPECTS DURING NEARLY 10 YEARS OF SERVICE
Dogs in this unit do not apprehend suspects, but work strictly as sniffers to find drugs and contraband.
“In the particular unit we are in, we are task force officers with Homeland Security,” Hubbard said.
Sgt. Charles Hubbard has a feeling that in five years, Rock will have collected kilos of drugs to his name — all for the safety of the city. (Sgt. Charles Hubbard, Fort Worth Police Department)
“So we’re federal agents under Customs and Border Patrol,” Hubbard added.
“Besides the southern border, international shipments are where both the base opioids are coming through as well as the finished pills.”
Hubbard and Rock can be found on duty at any distribution facility — such as UPS, FedEx or the U.S. Postal Service — checking out bulk shipments.
SHELTER DOG TURNED K-9 HERO INSPIRES NETFLIX MOVIE
“If [we] don’t work the bulk side and have a K-9 that can tell you, ‘Hey, there’s 100,000 pills in this box,’ we’re just never going to know,” Hubbard said.
“And once that hits the street and starts getting dispersed, you’re going to have mass overdoses, and then you’re behind the eight ball — you can’t catch up. So, plainly, we can’t do this job without a K-9 like him. It’s the most effective way for us to combat fentanyl, heroin, meth, cocaine, all of it.”
Sgt. Charles Hubbard takes Rock home to his family and to his two other dogs who were once police K-9s. (Sgt. Charles Hubbard, Fort Worth Police Department)
Rock also has discovered fentanyl in the field on traffic stops, had cocaine alerts in storage facilities and made multiple marijuana finds, Hubbard said.
At the end of a hard day’s work, Hubbard takes Rock home to his family and to his other two dogs, one of whom is a retired police K-9.
“All of our dogs go home with us,” Hubbard said.
“We spend more time with our K-9s than we do with our family because we’re at home with them all the time on the weekends, and then they go to work with us,” he said.
“Three of our six K-9s are shelter rescues now.”
Hubbard said he hopes Rock’s story inspires other police departments to give their local shelters a look when trying to identify a K-9.
“Three of our six K-9s are shelter rescues now,” Hubbard.
“I don’t know that you’ll find another unit [in which] half of their K-9 makeup are rescues.”
Ramsey said she sees it as a win-win situation.
Three of the six police K-9s at the Fort Worth Police Department are shelter dogs — proving that shelter dogs are capable of assisting in important police business, said Hubbard. (Sgt. Charles Hubbard, Fort Worth Police Department)
“It’s a double positive,” she said.
“[It’s] for the dogs and the image of shelter pets. Maybe for someone who thinks, ‘Oh, shelter dogs — they’re not what I’m looking for. I want something that can do X, Y and Z’ — well, shelter dogs, in most cases, can do that, too.”
For more Lifestyle articles, visit www.foxnews.com/lifestyle.
Read the full article from Here
Southwest
Travis County DA faces renewed ‘soft on crime’ criticism after career criminal charged with murder
NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles!
A Texas-based career criminal with a lengthy rap sheet is behind bars in Travis County after he was charged with murdering a father of five outside a 7-Eleven in Austin, reviving scrutiny of Travis County District Attorney José Garza and what critics call his controversial prosecutorial record and “soft on crime” approach.
Caleb Anthony Jenkins, described by police as a career criminal, was charged with murder in connection with a shooting last year that left a 25-year-old father dead outside a 7-Eleven. According to Austin police, Jenkins allegedly shot the victim and drove off.
But critics argue the killing may have been preventable. Garza’s office previously dismissed or declined to prosecute three separate gun charges against Jenkins in incidents dating back to 2022. He was also arrested in 2023 on a domestic violence charge and failed to appear in court, as Fox News reported. Most recently, he was re-arrested and released after his bond was raised.
Taken together, the developments have intensified public criticism of Garza, the Democratic district attorney backed by liberal mega-donor George Soros,
District Attorney Jose Garza in Austin, Texas. (Spencer Selvidge for The Washington Post via Getty Images)
Garza, who was elected Travis County DA without prior experience as a prosecutor, has faced criticism from police advocacy groups and victims’ families since taking office. They have accused him of deliberately slow-walking certain cases and embracing lenient sentencing policies.
The criticism has sparked national attention in years past. In 2023, the family of 25-year-old Doug Cantor, who was shot and killed in the 2021 Sixth Street mass shooting in downtown Austin, criticized Garza for slow-walking the trial of the gunman.
Family members told Fox News Digital in an interview at the time that they believed Garza had put the case on the “back burner.”
“It’s very clear that his focus and attention is not on this case,” Nick Kantor told Fox News Digital in an interview reflecting on the two-year anniversary of his brother’s death — and the way Garza, who has been widely criticized for soft-on-crime policies, has handled the case.
AUSTIN DA GARZA CREATES CONFUSION WITH ANNOUNCEMENT OF IMPENDING INDICTMENTS AGAINST MULTIPLE POLICE OFFICERS
Travis County District Attorney Jose Garza poses in front of the Austin skyline in a portrait from the county website. Garza has faced criticism for accusations that he aggressively prosecutes police officers accused of wrongdoing while going easy on career criminals. (Travis County DA Website)
“He’s doing things that are clearly causing distress on the trial and on the overall outcome of the case and for getting justice for my brother,” Kantor said.
Other victims’ families cited similar behavior from Garza’s office in interviews with Fox News Digital.
While overall reported crime in Travis County has declined, opponents argue dismissal rates have been “political,” and could further endanger public safety.
It “appears that Garza has now become more of an advocate for the criminal than he has for the victim,” Dennis Farris, president of the Austin Police Retired Officer’s Association, previously told Fox News Digital.
“The prosecution is acting more like defense attorneys than they are prosecutors,” Farris said in an interview roughly one year after Garza took office. “Whatever his skewed view of what criminal justice reform is, it isn’t working. It sure isn’t working for the victims.”
CRIME EXPERTS RESPOND TO SOROS DEFENDING SUPPORT FOR PROGRESSIVE DAS AMID CRIME WAVE: ‘DISASTROUS’
George Soros delivers a speech at the 2022 World Economic Forum in Davos. (Fabrice Coffrini/AFP via Getty Images)
“It used to be that they got the victims’ buy-in before offering plea bargains. Now it doesn’t appear he’s even doing that, because they’re not even communicating with them, and that’s what’s leading to the revictimization of these families.”
Current and former local law enforcement officers have criticized Garza’s actions and his alleged “war on cops,” after the Soros-backed district attorney campaigned on indicting police officers and “reimagining” policing in Austin.
Soros contributed $652,000 to the Texas Justice & Public Safety PAC in the months leading up to the 2020 Travis County DA election, according to campaign finance records.
That same PAC spent almost $1 million on digital and mail advertisements to help Garza’s campaign, as Fox News reported.
The Travis County District Attorney’s Office did not respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.
Related Article
Read the full article from Here
Southwest
Jasmine Crockett campaign reportedly kicked Atlantic writer out of rally for being a ‘top-notch hater’
NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles!
Atlantic staff writer Elaine Godfrey reported that she was “thrown out” of a rally for Rep. Jasmine Crockett, D-Texas, for being a “top-notch hater” according to Crockett’s team.
“Right before armed guards escorted me from the rally and left me on the edge of a Texas-county road, I was informed that I was no longer welcome at an event that I had already attended,” Godfrey wrote on Thursday.
She described having spent an hour at the Lubbock rally for Crockett’s Senate campaign before being approached by a woman with a badge as soon as she joined other reporters.
Elaine Godfrey claimed Rep. Jasmine Crockett’s team removed her from a rally in Texas earlier this week. (Dustin Franz/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
“‘Are you Elaine?’ she asked. I recognized her from the entrance of the event, where I had identified myself as she’d waved me into the building’s press area. Yes, I answered. ‘Her team has asked you to leave,’ she said. When I asked why, the staffer looked at her phone and read dutifully: ‘They just said, “Elaine from Atlantic, White girl with a hat and notepad. She’s interviewing people in the crowd. She’s a top-notch hater and will spin. She needs to leave,”’” Godfrey wrote.
Godfrey was the staff writer behind a profile piece for Crockett in July that reportedly received backlash from the Texas representative after including comments from fellow House Democrats “without telling her first.”
“She was, she told me, ‘shutting down the profile and revoking all permissions,’” Godfrey wrote at the time.
BOEBERT JOKES ABOUT ENDORSING CROCKETT IN TEXAS’ SENATE RACE TO GIVE HER DEMOCRATIC RIVAL A BOOST
Rep. Jasmine Crockett, D-Texas, is running in the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate. (LM Otero/AP Photo)
The piece was still published and included comments from other Democratic figures.
According to Godfrey, Crockett said that there was “no evidence” that a reporter was removed from her rally but claimed that there was a “specific journalist” who has a “history of being less than truthful” and had previously lost a lawsuit against Crockett.
“Perhaps she was thinking of someone else, because that’s not something that has ever happened to me,” Godfrey wrote.
CROCKETT DISPUTES OPPONENT’S DENIAL OF ‘MEDIOCRE BLACK MAN’ COMMENT, CALLS OUT ‘WELL-INTENTIONED WHITE FOLK’
Godfrey added that her removal from the rally wasn’t a surprise considering Crockett’s firebrand-style of politics, though she expressed concern over how she was handled.
Rep. Jasmine Crockett allegedly tried to shut down an article from Elaine Godfrey after she spoke to other House Democrats. (Bob Daemmrich/The Texas Tribune/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
“As security guards began to materialize around me, I wondered to myself what distinguished a top-notch hater from a middling one. I agreed to leave, and four guards, including at least one who was armed, escorted me out of the building, through the parking lot, and right to the edge of the nearby highway, where they waited as I ordered a car,” Godfrey wrote.
CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP
Fox News Digital reached out to Crockett’s office and campaign for comment.
Related Article
Read the full article from Here
Southwest
FAA restricts Texas airspace after Pentagon reportedly strikes down Customs and Border Protection drone
NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles!
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) restricted flights Thursday near Fort Hancock, Texas, after a U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) drone was reportedly shot down by a laser sytem operated by the Pentagon.
While government agencies have not identified who the drone belonged to, top Democrats on the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee released a joint statement Thursday evening claiming the drone belonged to CBP.
U.S. Reps. Rick Larsen, Bennie Thompson and Andre Carson said their “heads are exploding over the news” that a CBP drone was shot down by the Pentagon with “a high risk counter-unmanned aircraft system.”
The legislators added that this incident is “the result of [the White House’s] incompetence” after a “short-sighted” decision to “sidestep a bipartisan, tri-committee bill to appropriately train C-UAS operators and address the lack of coordination between the Pentagon, DHS and the FAA.”
The FAA expanded a temporary flight restriction near Fort Hancock, Texas, after lawmakers said a Pentagon-operated counter-drone system may have shot down a U.S. government drone. (iStock)
In a joint statement provided to Fox News Digital, the Department of War, CBP and the FAA said the DOW used counter-unmanned aircraft system to respond to a “seemingly threatening unmanned aerial system operating within military airspace.”
The departments said the engagement took place “far away from populated areas and there were no commercial aircraft in the vicinity,” adding they “will continue to work on increased cooperation and communication to prevent such incidents in the future.”
The departments said they are “working together in an unprecedented fashion to mitigate drone threats by Mexican cartels and foreign terrorist organizations at the U.S.-Mexico border.”
“The bottom line is the Trump Administration is doing more to secure the border and crack down on cartels than any administration in history,” the statement added.
FBI RAMPS UP COUNTER-DRONE EFFORTS AS PATEL WARNS OF GROWING THREATS FROM CRIMINALS, TERRORISTS
Congressional aides told Reuters that the Pentagon reportedly used the high-energy laser system to accidentally shoot down the CBP drone near the Mexican border, an area that frequently sees incursions from drones believed to be operated by Mexican drug cartels.
The FAA told Fox News Digital that a temporary flight restriction (TFR) was “already in place” around the Fort Hancock area and that the TFR “has been expanded to include a greater radius to ensure safety.”
The restriction does not impact commercial flights, the agency said.
The FAA said in a Notice to Air Missions (NOTAM) that airspace around Fort Hancock was temporarily restricted for “special security reasons.”
CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP
The restriction comes a couple of weeks after the FAA grounded flights to and from El Paso International Airport for 10 days before lifting the order roughly eight hours later.
Drones operated by Mexican drug cartels breached American airspace earlier this month near El Paso International Airport in Texas, leading the FAA to temporarily close the airport. (Kirby Lee/Getty Images)
A Trump administration official previously told Fox News that the initial lockdown came in response to “Mexican cartel drones” that breached U.S. airspace.
A U.S. official later confirmed that the U.S. military had shot down what was later determined to be a party balloon near El Paso.
Fox News Digital reached out to the White House for comment and was directed to the joint statement provided by the Department of War, Customs and Border Patrol and Federal Aviation Administration.
Fox News Digital’s Anders Hagstrom and Reuters contributed to this report.
Related Article
Read the full article from Here
Sleet, freezing rain leading to treacherous travel in parts of Connecticut
Attention Ag Insurance Agents: Subsidy issues subject of Monday, March 9 virtual Q&A with USDA Risk Management Agency – State of Delaware News
Man convicted of 1991 fatal shooting of a police officer is set to be executed in Florida
Gov. Kemp signs amended FY 2026 budget, delivering $2B in Georgia tax relief
Hawaii delegation continues to blast U.S. attack on Iran | Honolulu Star-Advertiser
Florida High School Football Rankings: Top 25 teams – Oct. 21
Cleary's 21 help Le Moyne down Central Connecticut State 69-64 in OT
How old is Bo Nix? What to know about Oregon quarterback ahead of 2024 NFL Draft
99th annual Pony Swim held in Virginia
Indiana Members Credit Union announced as new anchor tenant at Bottleworks District
Fraud-plagued Minnesota sues Trump admin for withholding $243M in Medicaid payments
Is Iran expanding attacks to target energy and civilian sites in the Gulf?
Trump claims US stockpiles mean wars can be fought ‘forever’; Kristi Noem testifies before Congress – US politics live
War in the Middle East: Iran’s broad retaliation in the Gulf • FRANCE 24 English
Trump sends official notification to Congress on strikes against Iran
-
World6 days agoExclusive: DeepSeek withholds latest AI model from US chipmakers including Nvidia, sources say
-
Massachusetts6 days agoMother and daughter injured in Taunton house explosion
-
Denver, CO6 days ago10 acres charred, 5 injured in Thornton grass fire, evacuation orders lifted
-
Louisiana1 week agoWildfire near Gum Swamp Road in Livingston Parish now under control; more than 200 acres burned
-
Oregon4 days ago2026 OSAA Oregon Wrestling State Championship Results And Brackets – FloWrestling
-
Florida3 days agoFlorida man rescued after being stuck in shoulder-deep mud for days
-
Technology1 week agoArturia’s FX Collection 6 adds two new effects and a $99 intro version
-
News1 week agoVideo: How Lunar New Year Traditions Take Root Across America