Continuously serving Kosciusko County since 1854
The Kosciusko County Sheriff’s Office Merit Board voted to hire Jaxon Torpy and Ethan Patrick as merit deputies during its board meeting Monday.
Torpy is a Kosciusko County native who lives in Beaver Dam and grew up in Silver Lake.
Patrick is from Whitley County and currently lives in Columbia City.
K-9 Officers
Lt. Travis Shively spoke to the board regarding the use of K-9 officers in the department. According to Shively, there have been 725 uses of K-9 officers since the start of the year.
The Kosciusko County Sheriff’s Office currently has five active dogs, with a sixth who recently retired.
The newest dog began working approximately three months ago and has had 32 usages already. Because of an increase in fentanyl in the county, all of KCSO’s K-9 officers are trained to find fentanyl as well. A total of 8 grams of fentanyl have been found in the last three months.
The jail’s K-9 officer, Buck, is deployed the most to search different areas in the jail on a purposeful randomized schedule. KCSO Sheriff Jim Smith stated, about having a K-9 officer in the jail, “Sometimes it can be a deterrent. When inmates know the dog is there, they don’t really want to take their chances bringing contraband into the jail.”
