PORT ANGELES — The Port Angeles Police Department K-9 program has been identified as a beneficiary of Evelyn Beckwith’s estate and will receive $100,000 post probate.
Beckwith’s last will and testament stated that the money must be “used for the purpose of acquiring, training and maintaining K9 units for the Police Department.”
Sgt. Kevin Miller, who started the Port Angeles Police Department (PAPD) K-9 program, said he isn’t aware of any connections between Beckwith and the program, although he hypothesized that she might have attended one of the program’s dog demos.
According to Beckwith’s obituary, she was born in Seattle in 1926. In 1944, she married Milton Beckwith in Port Angeles and subsequently lived in Idaho, Arizona and California before retiring to Joyce.
Her hobbies included ceramics, oil painting, dollmaking and raising Chihuahuas.
Beckwith died on March 5, 2024, at 97 years old. She was survived by her sister, daughter, grandson and two great-grandchildren. Milton and their two sons preceded her death.
Miller said the donation “is going to help us in a lot of different ways.”
The PAPD currently has two fully equipped police K-9 vehicles and two K-9 teams: Miller and K-9 Bodie, a Belgian malinois, and Officer Whitney Fairbanks and K-9 Copper, a German shepherd.
The PAPD is considering using the donation to add a third K-9 team to the department.
Although the K-9 program is housed in the PAPD, Miller said it works with other teams to provide service to the whole Olympic Peninsula. If the program can acquire a third team, it can build a schedule with better coverage, he said.
“With vacation and days off and working 24 hours a day, there’s huge holes in coverage,” Miller said.
The funds also will likely be used to find a replacement for K-9 Bodie when both Miller and Bodie retire next year.
The K-9 program is largely sustained through donations, Miller said, including an annual donation from the Hurricane Ridge Kennel Club.
During a typical year, Miller said the program spends between $3,500 and $4,000 on each dog. That includes two canine seminars, food and standard vet visits.
To travel and purchase a new dog, the program usually spends between $8,000 and $12,000. After that, the dog still has to be trained.
“When we get the dog, he doesn’t even know how to sit,” Miller said.
The K-9 teams are mainly deployed as a locating tool to find suspects, primarily violent felons.
“It’s kind of like, when people have problems, they call 911, but when the cops lose them [the suspects], they call us,” Miller said.
He described the dogs as a “force multiplier” for the police, allowing them to do more things with fewer people.
“You can build all the computers you want, [but] there’s still no app for scenting or olfaction.”
That is where the dogs come in, using their noses to find suspects or evidence, such as drugs or guns, that the suspects discarded.
“What they’re worth to the officers, they’re huge,” Miller said.
The two PAPD K-9 units are part of a larger coalition of about 12 K-9 teams that train biweekly and provide support across the region. Miller is the master trainer for this region, which includes Grays Harbor County, Kitsap County, Jefferson County and Clallam County.
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Reporter Emma Maple can be reached by email at emma.maple@peninsuladailynews.com.
