Profiles in policing: Officer Josh Sime and K9 Brock – “It’s all about the dog.”

by Margay Blackman,
Brockport Village Mayor

“You know the question I’m most often asked,” Officer Josh Sime began when I met him in the Police parking lot on Clinton Street for a ride-along: “Where’s the dog?” I’m guilty of the same whenever I encounter Josh without Brock, his German Shepherd K9 companion. They have been a pair since 2017 when Brockport was able, through generous donations, to acquire a K9.

Officer Sime – Brock’s handler – could not have been more accommodating when I scheduled a ride-along with him. He greeted me by handing me a Ziploc bag labeled “Sample K9 ride-along kit.” It contained several sets of earplugs (Brock barks at anyone approaching or exiting the car), a K9 arm/uniform patch, dog treats, and, especially thoughtfully, a lint roller. He confessed that he had even given Brock a bath the night before our ride. The Sime family lives on several acres of property with a pond. Brock loves the pond and had taken a dip the day before.

Naturally, we began with an inspection of the contents of the K9 car trunk.

Like every other BPD vehicle, there’s police paraphernalia in the trunk, most of which, in this case, relates to the dog: a protective padded harness, a work collar embossed “Police,” a bag of treats, leashes, a couple of protective “bite sleeves” for apprehension training, food and water bowls, and Brock’s favorite – an assortment of dog tug balls. You can’t miss the K9 car on the road: A big paw print and K9 are emblazoned on the side door. The license plate reads simply K9.

The caged rear of the car belongs to Brock. There are no seats, just a rubberized mat on the floor, which is spacious enough for a big dog to stretch out. Brock is big, with an imposing head and ears, the world’s longest canine tongue, a bushy tail, and large black paws. He looks smart and commanding, and he is.

An AC unit automatically controls the temperature when Brock is alone in the car. A small sliding door allows him to stick his head through to the front seat area when Officer Sime is on patrol. Fortunately, Brockport’s DPW mechanic was able to convert the car to accommodate a K9. Brock spends much of his 2 to 10 p.m. shift stretched out, snoozing in the car, unless he has to make a PR appearance at a school or the library, attend training, or has a tracking or narcotics job. If he’s needed immediately – for example, should his handler be in danger – Officer Sime presses a button attached to his belt, the car door opens wide, and Brock races from the car to find his handler.

Brock arrived on the Brockport scene with considerable planning and subsequent fanfare. He came from Shallow Creek Kennels in western Pennsylvania, a private police dog importing and training facility whose K9s are bred in Europe. They offer dogs ranging from “green” to fully trained. Officer Sime, the successful BPD candidate for K9 handler, along with then Lt. Cuzzupoli and Sergeant Mesiti, traveled there to find the right dog. They wanted a K9 to track lost persons and find narcotics. From 10 or 12 dogs, they selected a year-old “green” German Shepherd from the Czech Republic.

Brockport’s new K9 was introduced to the press, the Village Board, and the public at Corbett Park, along with acknowledgment of the donors who made the K9 possible. Milk-Bone, Wegmans, and Crime Stoppers underwrote the K9 purchase and equipment; Dr. Carolyn Orr at the Animal Clinic of East Avenue generously offered lifetime free vet care and food. A community-wide naming contest followed and the German Shepherd became “Brock.” Then came 20 weeks of intensive training for Brock, Officer Sime, and the other new Rochester Police Department K9s and their handlers. Village Board members attended the graduation ceremony in Rochester and pronounced Brock the best behaved of the several graduates.

As we headed down Brockport streets, I asked Josh about how he got into policing, his family, and how he spends his spare time. He grew up in Greece and Hilton and graduated from Marshall University in West Virginia with a criminal justice major and a psychology minor. Eleven years ago, he signed on to his first policing job with Brockport. He has served as president and vice president of the police union. He plays the drums in his church’s band, practices jujitsu, and is married with two young children.

About 15 minutes into the ride-along, we stopped at the SUNY Brockport fields adjacent to Redman Road so Brock could go for a run and relieve himself. Out came one of the tug balls from the trunk, and Brock became just a dog at play with his human companion. But, minutes into the retrieving, as he chased a thrown ball at top speed, Josh commanded him to return. Brock turned sharply upon hearing the command and came running back to Josh’s side.

I wanted to know about the routine field training of K9s, so I signed up for a trip to the Monroe County Public Safety training facility on Scottsville Road. I met Josh and Brock, along with three RPD (Rochester Police Department) K9 officers and their dogs. New York State training requirements bring Josh and Brock to the training facility twice a month. The facility is the site of the police academy, fire training, and K9 field training. One field is set up for agility training with fences to jump over, a waist-high window frame to jump through, a set of uneven, swaying surfaces to negotiate, and elevated metal grating to walk on. Officer Sime put Brock through his paces on the equipment. He looked pretty agile to me for an eight-year-old dog.

The three RPD canines (Belgian Malinois) are explosive sniffing dogs, so part of their training that day was to find a container of nitrates in the training field. Brock, on the other hand, is trained to find narcotics and people. We retired with Brock to the back building, the former site of the police academy whose warren of rooms are now used for various training scenarios. First exercise: entering a building to find a suspect who has secreted himself and won’t come out. Brock was leashed because of the danger of an armed suspect. Hidden in one of the rooms behind closed doors was one of the RPD K9 handlers. In a loud voice, Josh announced the police and demanded the suspect’s appearance. Brock started down the hallway, sniffing at several closed doors and moving on. He sat and barked at the door with the suspect behind it, then jumped up with his paws against the door. This exercise differed from a tracking exercise as Brock only searched for a human scent, not a particular human. If the latter were the case, he would have been taken to the last place where the missing person had been seen to pick up the scent for tracking.

Finding narcotics, again on a leash, followed. Office Sime had hidden tiny packets of heroin, meth, and cocaine in several of the rooms – under a VCR, beneath a telephone on a window ledge, and under a cone on the floor. Drugs used for training are highly monitored and controlled. Dogs are no longer trained to find marijuana, which has been legal in NYS since 2021, but neither can they be untrained to detect it. Fentanyl is mixed with many drugs today, which poses a danger to the canines as the drug is potentially lethal if inhaled. Drugs recovered from a police investigation are sent to the Monroe County Crime Lab for testing.

There are commands for every K9 activity, from chasing a ball to apprehending a suspect. Brock listens for commands buried in a conversational string, including the one that sends him after a thrown ball. What about the command to apprehend a suspect? “That’s top secret,” Officer Sime smiled. A K9’s work is reward-based. A reward always follows the successful execution of a task. Brock amply demonstrates this, chowing down vigorously on the tug ball he’s offered after completing each exercise.

The connection between handler and K9 is deep. Josh ticks off a long list of Brock’s outstanding qualities – temperament, intelligence, persistence, loyalty – and he readily admits that it is all about the dog. “I spend more time with Brock than with my family; I don’t go anywhere without him. He added, “I’ve never experienced a bond like this. If it were up to me, I’d be a K9 handler to the day I retire. This is who I am.”