A LOOK BACK:Communities value canine crime-fighters

To become a police officer these days requires many hours of classroom learning, outdoor training and grunt work.

Even after graduating from the police academy only a few excel by using one or more of the five senses they were born with.

This week we’ll look at two members of our police department who used one or more of their senses in police work.

Our first member of the Huntington Beach police department used his sense of smell to good advantage.

His name was Ulli Vom Uesener Werk, but he was simply called Ulli. That’s a pretty odd name, but it’s especially so when you consider Ulli was a dog. How many dogs do you know have a surname? Hence Ulli, who was one of the first two dogs trained for the city’s K-9 unit, was just known by his first name.

Ulli and a second trained police dog Buddy were purchased in Germany for $2,000 each by dog trainer Henry Friehs.

Friehs would train these two four-legged crime fighters in obedience, protection, searching and tracking.

The Huntington Beach Canine (K-9) unit was the brainchild of Officer Len Damerow in 1970.

Damerow approached Capt. Arland Usher about starting a K-9 unit in Huntington Beach like other cities had done.

Unfortunately, Capt. Usher died a short time later, but the idea of a K-9 unit didn’t and it was picked up by Chief Earle Robilaille and Lt. Dewayne Brown.

They pushed the program forward and on July 15, 1972 Ulli and Buddy became members of the force.

Officer Damerow trained with Ulli and Officer Gary Kircher trained with Buddy.

Many times the two dogs helped their handlers track suspects.

There were lighter moments, too, with the dogs.

One night when Ulli and Damerow were summoned to the scene of a bad accident on Pacific Coast Highway near Warner Avenue, fellow Officer Dennis Martin was startled by the dog when Martin dashed into a police car to use the radio.

Just as he was about to use the police radio he felt something wet on the back of his neck. When he turned around to investigate he saw he was inches away from Ulli’s nose.

Martin bailed out of the cruiser and his heart raced for minutes afterward, even though his four-legged co-worker never showed any aggression toward him or any officer during all his years of service.

In the four years that Ulli was an active member of the department you couldn’t find a more courageous or loyal representative of the law in our city.

Another officer who used his five senses to crack a case was Howard Robidoux. In this instance, Robidoux used his senses of sight and smell to bring in the bad guy.

Robidoux joined our police department as a patrolman March 18, 1929, and over the years as a traffic officer, Robidoux was able to predict exactly what type of day it was going to be just by watching the first dozen or so drivers in the morning.

Those observations supposedly helped him envision whether it would be a calm day or whether it would be filled with crime and accidents.

In the years prior to becoming our police chief, Robidoux heard every excuse from the hapless drivers he had stopped.

“My friend’s sick (or dying) … My wife’s having a baby … There’s a fire … “ He heard them all.

The most popular retort was, “What did you stop me for?”

What was the craziest excuse? That came one day when he stopped a speeding young couple who had just spent the day at the beach. They told him they had used up all of junior’s diapers.

“Honest, officer, we just have to get home and get more pants for junior,” the child’s father said.

That’s when Robidoux’s sense of smell factored into the story. Indeed, from the smell of things, junior really needed fresh diapers, so Robidoux let them off with a lecture.

Huntington Beach Mayor Don Shipley ordered all municipal flags to be flown at half-mast when Robidoux passed away on June 17, 1964. When Ulli died in 1976, a little bit of Huntington Beach died with him.