Sources close to the FBI’s investigation into last year’s anthrax attacks have said evidence gathered by bloodhounds is a major factor in the bureau’s interest in former U.S. Army biologist Steven Hatfill, but the techniques and equipment used by the bloodhounds’ handlers has come under criticism, the Baltimore Sun reported today (see GSN, Oct. 28).

In August, Newsweek reported that the FBI presented bloodhounds with scent packs taken from the decontaminated anthrax letters sent to Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) and Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.).  The dogs reacted only when taken to Hatfill’s apartment, Newsweek reported (see GSN, Aug. 5).

The methods used by the bloodhounds’ handlers — Bill Kift, a Long Beach, Calif., police officer, Dennis Slavin, an urban planner and reserve officer with the Pasadena, Calif., Police Department and Ted Hamm, a civilian who runs his own bloodhound business and is used by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department — have been criticized by others in the field, said FBI Agent Rex Stockham, who selected the handlers.

“The guys in Southern California are social outcasts in the bloodhound handling community,” said Stockham, a forensic examiner in the explosives unit at the FBI Laboratory in Washington.

Typically, a bloodhound handler uses a “scent article,” such as a piece of clothing, to start a dog looking for a trail, according to the Sun.  The Southern California handlers, however, use a “scent pad” — a piece of gauze placed on the article to absorb the scent — that is preserved in a plastic bag, instead of the actual article.  The handlers also often use a machine called the Scent Transfer Unit to take the scent off the article and place it onto the pad.

Truc Do, a Los Angeles County deputy district attorney who has had successes in prosecuting cases with evidence gathered by Hamm and Slavin, defended the handlers’ methods.

“They’ve been working at the forefront of this kind of evidence,” Do said.  “You really have to see it to believe it.”

Criticism

The two major bloodhound handlers associations, the Law Enforcement Bloodhound Association and the National Police Bloodhound Association, however, have criticized the Southern California handlers and their methods, the Sun reported (see GSN, Aug. 8).

“These are people we have credibility problems with,” said Jerry Nichols, president of the Law Enforcement Bloodhound Association.  “I’m extremely skeptical.  I don’t believe these dogs really do what they claim to do.”

Neither of the two associations has endorsed the use of the Scent Transfer Unit.  Officials from the two groups have said the machine offers little advantage over the use of a gauze pad alone and might confuse the dogs with older smells lingering in the machine. 

The Southern California handlers have also often used the dogs to identify a potential suspect in a case, such as Hatfill, in addition to tracking down missing persons, bloodhound experts said.  That, however, raises the possibility of a false positive, since there is always a possibility that an eager-to-please dog will falsely identify someone, some bloodhound handlers said.

Lehr Brisbin, a biologist at the University of Georgia, has conducted experiments where a bloodhound tried to identify who among a half dozen people wore a baseball cap given to the dog.  No bloodhound was able to successfully identify the person consistently, Brisbin said.

“As a scientist, what they’re supposed to have done (in the anthrax case) sounds like a miracle,” said Brisbin, a bloodhound handler himself.  “Every time I ask a dog to identify a suspect under controlled conditions, the dog can’t do it” (Scott Shane, Baltimore Sun, Oct. 29).

For further information, see:

CDC Frequently Asked Questions About Anthrax

GSN Anthrax Attack Chronology (Dec. 12, 2001)

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