Las Vegas Sun

March 29, 2024

Honoring Nicky: GoFundMe campaign backs bulletproof vests for Metro police dogs

Nicky

LVMPD YOUTUBE IMAGE

Nicky, a Metro Police dog, was killed Thursday, March 31, 2016, during an officer-involved shooting. The same K-9 was stabbed multiple times the previous month after police responded to a disturbance call.

2 People, Police Dog Killed

Metro Police officers salute as a procession with the body of a slain police dog leaves the scene near an officer-involved shooting Thursday, March 31, 2016, in the northwest valley. Two people are reported dead and a suspect was shot and is in custody, police said. Launch slideshow »

After a “hero” K-9 with Metro Police was fatally shot in the line of duty last week in the northwest valley, a Las Vegas man has set up an online fundraiser to support Metro’s police dogs.

Jay Bloom, 48, a Las Vegas real estate developer, started a GoFundMe account on Sunday in memory of Nicky, an 8-year-old Belgian Malinois who was gunned down Thursday during an incident that also took the lives of two good Samaritans.

The fund, titled in memory of the police dog, aims to raise a total of $72,000 for Kevlar bulletproof vests for Metro’s 32 police dogs. Bloom said such a vest could have saved the life of Nicky.

“These dogs risk their lives to help protect us,” Bloom said, "and unfortunately Metro doesn’t have the funds for these vests.”

Bloom, a civilian member of Metro’s “Use of Force Review Board,” also owns two adopted dogs. He said the bond between dog owners and their pets is “unique.” That bond goes even further for Metro officers and their dogs, he said, because they also work together during the day.

“Those dogs become a part of the officers’ families,” he said. “It’s really like a family member being shot for those officers who live with them.”

Bloom said the Kevlar vests cost $2,250, a claim Metro spokesman Michael Rodriguez couldn’t immediately confirm.

But Rodriguez warned that bulletproof vests can be “tactically inhibiting” for dogs, and that the force purposely doesn’t use them for most police canines, a claim Metro Undersheriff Kevin McMahill confirmed during a Monday news conference on last week’s officer-involved shooting.

Besides restricting movement, the vests snag when dogs get into tight spaces, Rodriguez explained, like bushes, attics or tunnels in trailers.

“In the past, we’ve found it just hasn’t been advantageous for us,” Rodriguez said. “There are still a lot of questions about the effectiveness of such a vest.”

Bloom, who said he still hoped the funds will be used for the dogs, added he’d also support Metro Police if they decided to use the money elsewhere.

"They know how to run a police department better than we do,” Bloom said. "If they see a better way to allocate the resources, we support it."

Thirty-one dogs remain in Metro’s K-9 unit, meaning vests for all of them, plus Nicky’s replacement, would cost $72,000.

Extra funds raised will be donated to Metro for “general purposes,” like paying the estimated $40,000 cost of replacing Nicky, Bloom said.

“Metro is on a tight budget; they don’t always have the resources they need to do their job,” he said. “It falls on us as the public to try to help them. Both the police and the dogs.”

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