Winfield Police Chief Danny Parker is keeping quiet about whether police have plans to take the department’s K-9 unit to the Winfield Fairground for the Walnut Valley Festival this weekend.
"Maybe, maybe not," Parker said, as he chuckled a bit. "You’ll just have to wait and see."
Every year the police department has, at any given time, between four and 10 department employees at the fairground to help with security during the acoustic music festival. This will be the first year the department has a K-9 officer ? a Belgian Malinois dog named Kessy ? at its disposal.
One of Kessy’s sharpest skills is sniffing out drugs and she’s already helped to make some busts since arriving here in April. Given that music festivals and concerts often are hotspots for recreational drug use, it seems the department’s new pooch could have a field day.
But the department isn’t planning to go overboard, Parker said.
"We’re not going to go around sniffing all the campers, that’s just not going to happen," he said. "If she’s needed or we think she’d be useful down there, then we’ll bring her down there."
Parker said for the most part everyone at fairground events seems to behave themselves. It’s 10 percent or so that usually cause the ruckus.
The chief is mostly worried about making sure everyone is safe and sound at a festival that basically doubles this city’s size for more than a week each September. Officers even draw for the privilege of picking prime overtime slots.
"It’s a tremendous amount of overtime for us," he said. "And a tremendous amount of effort goes into it."
