Open Letter<\/p>\n
Fundraiser for K09 memorial underway<\/p>\n
Many law enforcement agencies in South Carolina use K-9’s for a myriad of services. That wasn’t always the case.<\/p>\n
In 1947, the S.C. Law Enforcement Division was the first agency by helping the state’s local Sheriff and Police Departments by using K-9’s that SLED maintained. Since that time many agencies have used K-9‘s and sadly, there have been seven K-9’s that suffered line of duty deaths.<\/p>\n
In 2023 and 2024 SLED had two K-9’s killed in the line of duty. These losses hit the SLED family, both current and former members of the agency, hard. Other local agencies have had similar K-9 line of duty deaths.<\/p>\n
Now nearly 80 years since its K-9 services began, the Society of Former Agents (SOFA) and the Foundation of Former Employees of SLED have begun a campaign to raise voluntary donations for a memorial in Columbia to commemorate the service and sacrifice of those K-9’s. Our Society and Foundation plan to gift to SLED a K-9 Memorial to not only honor those who died in the line of duty and recognize the exemplary service of all K-9’s from every unit that has K-9 specialists.<\/p>\n
The Society of Former Agents of SLED and the Foundation of Former Employees of SLED is a 501 (c) (3) charitable organization. All voluntary donations are tax deductible and go directly to the project. No state funds are being used for this project.<\/p>\n
More information about SOFA and the Foundation is at http:\/\/socxsled.org<\/p>\n
Best,
Thom W. Berry<\/p>\n
Berry is a SOFA member and a retired Special Agent with SLED, having served as a sworn law enforcement officer and state government public information officer for more than 35 years at SLED and the former Department of Health and Environmental Control.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Open Letter Fundraiser for K09 memorial underway Many law enforcement agencies in South Carolina use K-9’s for a myriad of services. That wasn’t always the case. In 1947, the S.C. Law Enforcement Division was the first agency by helping the state’s local Sheriff and Police Departments by using K-9’s thatContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8440,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[39],"tags":[653],"class_list":["entry","author-john-griggs","post-8439","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-letter-to-editor","tag-op-ed"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/gpstrianglenews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/K9-Memorial-Large_2026_630x350.jpg?fit=630%2C350&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gpstrianglenews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8439","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gpstrianglenews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gpstrianglenews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gpstrianglenews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gpstrianglenews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8439"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/gpstrianglenews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8439\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gpstrianglenews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8440"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gpstrianglenews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8439"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gpstrianglenews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8439"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gpstrianglenews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8439"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}