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K-9 Unit

The Oak Forest Police K9 Unit trains continuously to maintain the skills that are needed to "take a bite out of crime."

The unit has two teams, K9 Orry and Officer Jason Vodnik and K9 Pitt and Investigator Paul Kocek, which provide much needed assistance to federal, state, county, and local jurisdictions throughout Illinois and Indiana.

In addition to their primary role as a law enforcement support and patrol unit, the K9 teams foster community support while attending public and private functions such as DARE programs, community fairs, and block parties, which allow them to meet thousands of people every year.  

K9 Orry and Officer Vodnik 

K9 Orry is a dual purpose patrol/narcotic detector dog born in Germany in 2003. Orry began working with Officer Vodnik on September 11, 2006. K9 Orry is trained and certified through the North American Police Work Dog Association (NAPWDA) in tracking, building, area and article searches, obedience, suspect apprehension, handler protection, and narcotic detection.  In only the first few years on the job, K9 Orry has located fleeing suspects, discarded evidence, and helped to take over $1 million worth of drugs out of our communities.  In 2010, Officer Vodnik and K9 Orry were awarded the NAPWDA Outstanding Service Award for tracking an armed robbery suspect.  

K9 Pitt and Investigator Kocek

K9 Pitt is a 3-year-old German shephard, who previously worked for the Will County Sheriff's Department.  K9 Pitt and Kocek became a team in September 2011 after completing an intense six-week training program to receive their certification in patrol and narcotics detection from the Landheim Training Center in Dyer, Indiana.  K9 Pitt's primary role is to assist the department's tactical unit in gang suppression and the search and seizure of illegal narcotics through vehicle searches and search warrants.  However, K9 Pitt is also trained and certified to conduct suspect tracks, building searches, protection work, and crowd control.  In his first major assignment, K9 Pitt apprehended a home intruder who fled to a crawlspace when a resident came home during an attempted burglary.