Sheriff’s Department arson Detective Doug Lerner has been working without his partner – Scooter.

The yellow Lab, known to get excited over the scent of gasoline and other accelerants, has been out on injury leave with a bad foot.

The action pooch had surgery on Jan. 29 at the Suffern Animal Hospital. She’s expected to be off-duty until the end of the month, Detective Lt. William Barbera said.

“She came back and had a cone on her head,” Barbera said, adding the device was meant to prevent Scooter from licking or biting the stitches on her back leg.

Her stitches came out today, he said.

While she’s convalescing, Lerner has been working.

He’s investigating the massive fire that destroyed a Washington Avenue warehouse in Suffern last week – a fire seen for miles. And the warehouse had loads of flammable stuff – from propane tanks to gasoline, all the stuff that puts the bark in an arson dog like Scooter.

Lerner and Scooter have been a team since 2006.

Scooter was found in a Chicago animal shelter after she was abandoned on the streets. The person who rescued the pup and named her Scooter took her to Maine for possible training as an arson dog.

Scooter succeeded Hayley, a black Labrador retriever who became the county’s first arson dog in 2001. Hayley retired with her handler, Detective Joseph Guidice.

While Scooter is a “sworn” law enforcement pooch, she’s not eligible for 2007c – the state program that pays police officer their salary tax free while they are recovering from an on-the-job injury.

Back-to-school edition for the Land of Rock podcast. Enjoy, friends.

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Rockland Sheriff’s Department and Ramapo detectives still are trying to figure out what caused last week’s fire that destroyed the second-floor of a Decatur Avenue  house in Ramapo, a block outside Spring Valley off Maple Avenue.

Investigators know where the fire started on the second floor – where a family grandmother lived – but not exactly what set off the flames, Sheriff’s Detective Douglas Lerner says. Two air-conditioners were  scorched during the blaze and were considered a possible source for the flames.

“We know where the fire started but we don’t know how,” Lerner said.  “We’re exploring a couple of different possibilities.”

The flames reported at 2:30 p.m.  Aug. 20 drew about 50 Spring Valley and Hillcrest volunteer firefighters to the house, an older cape-styled house with weather-worn siding on a block with new construction, including large three-family houses. The block and neighborhood – between Spring Valley proper and Monsey -  has become predominately Orthodox Jewish. Close to a 100 people – adults and students – watched the volunteers douse the blaze.

Lerner said the fire has not been classified as either accidental or suspicious. Investigators don’t always discover the cause.

Time  will tell.

It’s a dog’s world and three Rockland police departments received equipment through a non-profit group for their K-9 units.

Spring Valley, Clarkstown and Ramapo received the equipment from the Onyx and Breezy Foundation, an organization started in 2004 by Mark and Wanda Shefts in honor of their two Labrador retrievers. The foundation supports a wide range of projects that advance the welfare of animals.

The Shefts will appear with the three dogs and officers to discuss the grants tomorrow at 4:30 p.m. in the Rockland Legislature Chambers, first floor of the County Office Building, 11 New Hempstead Road, New City.  The grants were procured by Rockland Public Safety Advocate David Fried, who works for Sheriff James Kralik on finding money for police across the county and other issues like recruitment.

Fried estimated the equipment is valued at $6,000. The  following equipment was obtained :

• Technology equipping K-9 vehicles in Spring Valley and Ramapo with temperature monitoring to ensure a safe environment for the dog when the canine is unattended on hot or cold days during emergency responses. Remote pagers would tell the officer if temperatures inside the vehicles would endanger the dog’s health. The cars also would be equipped with a cooling fan that would turn on automatically at certain temperatures. The officers also would get device that automatically opens the vehicle door to allow the dog to respone in emergencies.  Each departments has one dog each trained in tracking and narcotics.

• Computer software for the Clarkstown Police Department that would maintain records such as veterinary care, training logs and deployment.  Clarkstown has the largest K-9 patrol program in the county with two dogs. Suffern also has a K-9 unit.

The Sheriff’s Department has two dogs trained to sniff out explosive components and one canine trained to sniff out accelerants for arson investigations. A third dog trained for the bomb disposal unit coming soon.

“The equipment that is being provided is a testament to the importance of K9s in all our lives, the noble service of K9s in law enforcement and the legacy of Onyx and Breezy,” foundation Trustee Wanda Shefts said in a news release. “As a society we have an obligation to support and provide for animals.”

Kralik noted that since the terrorists attacks on the World Trade Center in Manhattan and Pentagon in Washington with hijacked airplanes, police dogs have played a larger role in law enforcement.

“Together with their human handlers, law enforcement has been greatly enhanced by police dogs in narcotic seizures, arson investigations, explosives detections and patrol work,” Kralik said.

Sheriff’s Department Lt. Billy Barbera called me Thursday evening.

I said, “Hey Billy, what’s up.”

Barbera responded that I had called him and he was returning my call.

Silence, on my end, as I tried to remember when I called him and why? It’s 6 p.m. and I still have another hour’s work before I go home.

Barbera is one of Sheriff James Kralik’s public information officers so I must have had a question about something – an arrest, a policy matter.

Before I came up with an answer, Barbera, always the gentleman, asked, “Did you forget I was in Alabama all week?”

Now that you mentioned it,  I guess so.

The important point is Barbera was  being trained in Alabama becasue he’s a supervisor for the Sheriff’s Department Bomb Disposal Unit. Capt. Louis Falco and Capt. Andrew Esposito already have taken similar training courses for the countywide unit.

The bomb disposal squad has three officers and two bomb-sniffing dogs, to go along with a bomb disposal robot, X-ray device, a fully equipped bomb truck with all the bells and whistles, and other equipment. Two more officers are being trained.

Kralik wants the bomb unit  accredited as a level one unit and the ability to handle more than one incident at a time and have extra officers in case of terrorist attack or some other type of castrophe. There was a time when Rockland police waited hours for a bomb squad from either the state police or another county.

Barbera said the unit is several hundred thousand dollars short for  another bomb truck and, subsequently, level one status. I could only think  this sounds like a job for Kralik’s grant-obtainer, David Fried, a former county legislator.  Kralik hired Fried, a Democrat who didn’t seek re-election in November, and even got Fried a license to carry a gun like he was a police officer.

Back to Barbera, who said he was enjoying the training course.

“I am getting to blow things up,” he said.

He said he would be back Monday and I should call him when I remembered why I called him on Thursday.

For the second time this month, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Manhattan has sent kudos to a Rockland law enforcement agency.

This morning, the Rockland Computer Crimes Task Force got a pat on the computer for helping federal prosecutors bring charges against New York City Police Officer Trent Young. The task force is staffed with investigators from the Rockland Sheriff’s Department and Rockland District Attorney’s Office.

Young, 39, who also is a martial arts instructor has been charged with three counts of interstate transportation of minors for the purposes of illegal sexual activity (involving two alleged victims). He is being held without bail pending a scheduled arraignment at 9 a.m. tomorrow before United State Magistrate Judge Lisa Margaret Smith in the White Plains federal courthouse. He faces 10 years in prison if convicted of the charges involving having intercourse with two minors who were 14 and 15 when the alleged sexual abuse began two years ago.

U.S. Attorney Michael Garcia, in a press release, “praised the efforts and assistance” of the Rockland Sheriff’s Department and other agencies.

Part of the federal case against Young includes analysis of computer, cell phones and other electronic items. And that’s where the Rockland Computer Crimes Task Force enters the investigation.

“We did all the forensics work for their case,” said Rockland District Attorney’s Office Lt. John Gould, who heads the task force. “There were computers, cameras, cell phones, thumb drivers.”

Gould declined to discuss exactly what was found on the computers and other electronic items.

Gould said the task force works regularly with the FBI and Secret Service on federal investigations. Much of the task force’s investigations center on pedophiles searching the web and Internet chat rooms for children. The task force also does other Internet crime like identity thefts and other frauds.

Last week, the U.S. Attorney’s Office praised the assistance of the Rockland Narcotics Task Force. The undercover agency provided federal drugs agents with information on a New York City drug dealer that led to the arrest of a mayor of a Mexican city on charges of providing cocaine to dealers in the New York City-metropolitan area.

The Narcotics Task Force obtained the information during a wire-tape and surveillance investigation from late 2004 into 2005 into a local drug dealing operation that obtain cocaine and other drugs from New York City.

The system worked, though there were some bumps along the way.

A Haverstraw runaway, Kimberly Escobar, 16, was found and back with her family, as of Saturday. Her mother reported her missing on Jan. 2, after she left home on Dec. 24.

Escobar was found, police say, because a cabbie recognized her face from missing posters distributed on Friday by the Sheriff’s Department C.A.R.E. program and the Haverstraw police. C.A.R.E stands for “Computer Aided Rescue Effort”:http://www.co.rockland.ny.us/Sheriff/missing/children.htm

Upon seeing the poster on Friday, the cab driver called the police and told them he remembered driving the teenager to Northvale, N.J., police said. Haverstraw police then contacted their counterparts in Northvale. Officers went to the house and found the girl.

The CARE program sent out a missing person flier on Friday to more than a 1,000 targets in the region including law enforcement, hospitals, merchants, post offices, emergency service providers, and transportation centers and providers like cab companies, said Officer Walter Famular, who oversees the C.A.R.E. program.

Famular had been working with Haverstraw Detective Sgt. John Salter and Detective Charles Hatala.

Since police determined Escobar had run away from home because of arguments with her mother over her following household rules, no criminal charges were filed.

If you haven’t already, check out part one of our Year In Review below.

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Rockland’s top stories of 2007

As usual, the Assembly Democrats got more money to spend on pet projects this year—commonly referred to as “pork,” but Republicans got more this year than last. About $2 million to be exact.

For more information on pork spending and the specifics of the statewide trends, click here for our recent Lohud.com story.

In Rockland, the late Assemblyman Kenneth P. Zebrowski, D-New City, secured the most pork funding—$153 million—to be spent on things like a new van for the Helen Hayes Hospital Foundation and new computers for Meals on Wheels.

Nancy Calhoun, R-Blooming Grove, came in second for the Rockland Assembly members, but out of $121,000, only three items totaling $17,000 were set aside for Rockland, not including money for the Ramapo-Catskills Library System which includes both Rockland and Orange counties.

Calhoun’s district includes all of Stony Point.

Annie Rabbitt, R-Greenwood Lake, set aside $18,096 and just four items of her $103,000 total for Rockland items, not including the Ramapo-Catskills Library system. Her district includes part of Ramapo.

Freshmen Assemblywoman Ellen Jaffee, D-Suffern, brought home a total of $110,000 for things like renovations at the Airmont community center after school programs at the Nyack Center and the Martin Luther King Center.

Below is a full list of the Rockland Assembly pork:

Nancy Calhoun, R-Blooming Grove

$2,500, Cornell Cooperative Extension of Orange County for youth programs.

$10,000, Town of Blooming Grove for senior center improvements and recreation equipment at Mays Field.

$10,000, Town of Chester for Sugar Loaf planning grant.

$5,000, Town of Cornwall to digitize historical archives.

$10,000, Town of Crawford for improvements to the town park.

$2,500, Town of Highlands for equipment at Fort Montgomery.

$7,500, Town of Highlands Ambulance Corps for defibrillators and pagers.

$7,500, Town of Montgomery for a video-surveillance system.

$8,500, Town of New Windsor for a backup generator.

$10,000, Town of Stony Point for programs.

$4,500, Town of Stony Point for an accident-investigation system.

$10,000, Town of Woodbury for senior center improvements.

$5,000, Village of Cornwall-on-Hudson for a commercial freezer door.

$2,500, Village of South Blooming Grove for start-up expenses.

$2,500, Village of Walden for programs.

$2,500, Village of Woodbury for start-up expenses.

$2,500, Rockland County Sheriff’s Dept. for sex offender-tracking software.

$5,000, Ramapo-Catskill Library System for a summer reading program.

$5,000, Sarah Wells Girl Scout Council for programs.

$3,000, Orange County Veterans Cemetery for equipment.

$5,000, Orange County Firefighters Museum for programs.

$121,000 total.
– – – – – – – – -

Ellen Jaffee, D-Suffern

$2,000, Suffern Farmers Market for marketing and promotion.

$7,500, Village of Spring Valley for training classes.

$2,000, Orangetown Fire Company No. 1 to remodel the interior room.

$8,000, Lower Hudson Valley Challenger Center for software and programs.

$10,000, Community Outreach Center of Monsey for a community patrol.

$7,500, Village of Spring Valley for the Jitney bus service.

$5,000, Community Action Program of Rockland for women’s programs.

$4,000, Community Action Network for a Drug-Free Life and Environment for counseling programs.

$15,000, Haitian American Cultural and Social Organization (Spring Valley) for a language-support program.

$8,000, Martin Luther King Multi-Purpose Center for software and equipment for an after-school program.

$5,000, Nyack Center for an after-school cultural program.

$7,500, Rockland County YMCA for after-school programs and field trips.

$9,500, Rockland Family Shelter for a teen workshop on abusive relationships.

$10,000, Village of Airmont to renovate a community center.

$4,000, Volunteer Counseling Service of Rockland to upgrade computer system.

$1,000, NAMI Familya of Rockland for support services for the mentally ill.

$4,000, Arts Council of Rockland for marketing.

$110,000 total.
– – – – — – – -

Annie Rabbitt, R-Greenwood Lake

$2,260, Pine Island Chamber of Commerce to plant trees.

$2,260, Campbell Hall Fire Dept. for equipment.

$4,524, Monroe Lakeside Fire Dept. for equipment.

$4,524, Town of Goshen for a fuel-dispensing system.

$4,524, Town of Hamptonburgh to construct a picnic area at a senior center.

$4,524, Town of Mount Hope for playground equipment.

$4,524, Town of Warwick to pave the area around an animal shelter.

$4,524, Village of Goshen for improvements to village hall.

$4,524, Village of Harriman for improvements to village hall.

$4,524, Village of Hillburn Dept. of Public Works for equipment.

$4,524, Village of Kiryas Joel for a radio repeater.

$4,524, Village of Monroe to plant trees in Crane Park.

$4,524, Village of Montebello for solar electric panels at town hall and for a 20th anniversary brochure.

$4,524, Village of Otisville to pave a municipal parking lot and for new curbs and trees.

$4,524, Village of Sloatsburg for software.

$4,524, Village of Suffern for Suffern Day.

$4,524, Village of Tuxedo Park to repair a dam.

$4,524, Village of Warwick for benches.

$4,524, Florida Police Dept. for security cameras at reservoirs.

$4,524, Greenwood Lake Police Dept. for computer upgrades.

$4,524, Wallkill Police Dept. for equipment.

$5,000, Ramapo-Catskill Library System for a reading program ($500 for each library in the system).

$4,524, Tuxedo Senior Center for renovations to the railroad station.

$3,000, Orange County Veteran’s Service Agency for cemetery equipment.

$103,000 total.
– – – – – – – -

Ken Zebrowski, D-New City

$10,000, Helen Hayes Hospital Foundation for a van.

$30,000, Village of Haverstraw for a new room at the Haverstraw Center.

$8,500, Village of Pomona for an emergency generator.

$50,000, Village of Spring Valley to replace the heating system at the Louis Kurtz Civic Center.

$2,900, Rockland Teachers’ Center Institute to purchase school supplies for needy children.

$5,000, Meals on Wheels of Rockland for new computers.

$5,000, Big Brothers Big Sisters of Rockland for a gang-prevention counselor.

$3,100, Child Care Resources of Rockland for new computers.

$7,000, Community Action Program of Rockland for women’s programs.

$5,000, Haverstraw Ecumenical Project and Day Care Center for services.

$7,000, Interfaith Coalition for the Homeless of Rockland County for office equipment.

$8,000, Rockland Family Shelter for furniture.

$2,500, Star Kids (Garnerville) for a sports program.

$5,000, Volunteer Counseling Service of Rockland to upgrade the computer system.

$4,000, Arts Council of Rockland for office equipment and a newsletter.

$153,000 total.