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Officer Heller and Police Service Dog Zeke

Officer Heller joined the Bellevue Police Department in 2000. He spent two years as a Road Patrol Officer but always hoped to work with a Police Service Dog (PSD). He spent much of his first two years on road patrol learning what he could about the K9s and assisting with their training whenever possible.

Heller became a K9 officer in August of 2002 when he was partnered with PSD Zeke. They began training in January of 2003. They were certified as a team in April of 2003.

Zeke is a Belgian Malinois born in 2001. His personality can be different from other police dogs. Most police dogs work for their handlers. Zeke however usually works to reward himself. While Officer Heller says that he and Zeke have a very strong bond, he says Zeke's strong bond is with his work. Zeke knows when it is time to go to work. While riding around in the back of the patrol car for countless hours, he always remains alert by pacing in circles all night. When the lights flash and sirens sound while responding to a call, Zeke begins to whine in anticipation of being let out of the car to find drugs or the bad guy.

Zeke has located several suspects hiding from police on numerous occasions. Officer Heller was asked to describe one such event:

"The one that impressed me the most was when we were called to a burglary in a car lot. The lot had over one hundred cars which made searching the lot almost impossible for officers due to so many hiding spots for the suspect. We were short staffed that evening and had just enough officers to set up a perimeter around the lot. Due to the shortage of officers, it was only Zeke and I that entered the lot to search. After giving several verbal warnings to the suspect, I deployed Zeke to find the suspect. Within less than one minute, Zeke had located the suspect lying down inside a van about half-way down the lot. Zeke detained the suspect until officers could come up to make the arrest. His keen sense of smell not only located the suspect, but assisted in protecting officers from searching this lot by hand in the hours of darkness. It also saved valuable time in the search. It could have taken officers several hours to complete a search of that size."

Officer Heller has a BA in Criminal Justice from Wayne State College. Prior to joining BPD, he was with the Nebraska Department of Corrections.

Heller said Zeke is a great partner and he enjoys using him as a tool for locating suspects, drugs and evidence. Because of Zeke, he said, he enjoys coming to work every day and he hopes to spend many years to come as a K9 officer.