Marlboro welcomes K-9 cops

MARLBORO — The township now has two new best friends. In a ceremony before Thursday’s Township Council meeting, the long-awaited K-9 team of Vaik and Lex were unveiled and adorned with official police badges.

The pair of 2-year-old German shepherds came to Marlboro via the Czech Republic for a cost of $3,000 each. Lex and Vaik have undergone 16 weeks of training and are qualified for criminal apprehension, tracking, building searches and obedience, according to Patrolman Joseph Chaplinski, Vaik’s handler. Both have another 10 weeks of training scheduled to learn drug detection skills.

"It’s a lot of work," said Union County Sheriff’s K-9 Unit trainer Brian Howarth, who helped prepare the dogs. "We try to get the dogs involved in every type of situation they’ll face."

The approximately $20,000 total cost for the dogs and related equipment, such as fitting police cars to hold them, was donated from several community businesses and private citizens, according to Marlboro Police Chief Robert Holmes.

During the training, each dog lived with a designated handler who will now be on call 24 hours a day. Lex is under the care of Patrolman Gerald Arminio and Vaik is paired with Chaplinski.

A glance at a week’s Marlboro police logs often shows several occasions where surrounding communities’ K-9 units respond to Marlboro. Now, Marlboro police hope they can return the favor and help other departments, Holmes said.

"We’ve never had a problem with outside agencies, but if the outside agencies are tied up, the response time now will be faster," Chaplinski said.

In other police business, Holmes and Mayor Matthew Scannapieco promoted Frederick Reck to the rank of sergeant during the ceremony. Reck began his service to Marlboro in 1994 and is a graduate of Marlboro High School.

Scannapieco said Reck distinguished himself not with a handful of major cases, but with his overall, everyday consistency on the job.

"This is one of our future leaders," Holmes said. "He was a very good patrolman, an excellent detective and I know he’ll do an excellent job as a sergeant."