Peer pressure earns Dagsboro K9 Corporal department honor
DAGSBORO – Peer pressure can be a good thing.
Apparently, it is for Town of Dagsboro Police Cpl. Justin Wechtenhiser, who was honored Monday evening at the town council meeting as the …
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Peer pressure earns Dagsboro K9 Corporal department honor
By Glenn RolfeDAGSBORO — Peer pressure can be a good thing.
Apparently, it is for town of Dagsboro Police Cpl. Justin Wechtenhiser, who was honored April 22 at the town council meeting as the department’s 2023 Officer of the Year.
“This is more of a peer award for his hard work,” said Dagsboro Police Chief Steven Flood. “His peers came to me and said, ‘I think we need to give something or do something for Justin for his hard work over the past year.’ I agreed with them.”
Since landing in Dagsboro after a 10-year stint with the Bridgeville Police Department, Cpl. Wechtenhiser has assumed the handler/comrade role with his K9 partner, Buzz.
“We wanted to restart our K9 program. He gets no extra pay for that. He does that. He’s our Homeland Security investigation part-time guy. No extra pay for that. If you know anything about the federal government, it’s a lot of paperwork,” Chief Flood said.
On the police beat, Cpl. Wechtenhiser and Buzz have amassed over $520,000 of suspected illegal activities off the highway, including cigarettes, alcohol, money laundering, stolen property, along with human trafficking and terrorism, Chief Flood said.
There have also been drug busts involving heroin, marijuana, cocaine, and methamphetamine, the chief said.
“A lot of people think that Dagsboro is a sleepy little town. If they only knew what was going up and down the roads on a daily basis, and we’re not even scratching the surface of what is out there,” said Chief Flood.
Chief Flood said Cpl. Wechtenhiser is “probably the only officer that I ever tried to talk out of coming to Dagsboro, because I am friends with the Bridgeville police chief. He came. He saw our vision here. He believed in what we were doing here. It’s the hard effort of all the guys and girls that are out there doing what they need to do every day. Justin bought into that.”
“Chief, I couldn’t agree with you more,” said Mayor William Chandler III. “There is actually no higher testimonial than when your peers want to recognize you. That says it all.”
“Thank you,” Cpl. Wechtenhiser said. ‘It has been a pleasure coming here.”
