A K-9 named Rak is officially no longer a member of the Winfield Police Department and is reportedly living with Winfield Town Councilman Tim Clayton and his family.
The Winfield Town Council on Tuesday approved a request from Winfield Town Marshal Robert Byrd that Rak be administratively removed from the town’s police department membership ranks.
The council, with Clayton abstaining, also approved transferring the ownership of Rak to the Clayton family.
“Of note is that the police department does not have any personnel or training records for Rak, probably because they were maintained by Rak’s police handler who is no longer a member of the department,” Byrd said to the council.
Rak’s police handler was Sgt. Stephen Garpow, who had been on paid administrative leave but resigned from the Winfield Police Department late last year and took the dog with him to the southern part of the state, town officials said.
Earlier this year, Rak was brought back to Winfield and taken by officials to the Hobart Animal Clinic where he was housed for one and a half months.
He was then taken in by the Clayton family where he has remained for the last eight months or so, town officials said.
Byrd said that Rak’s long-term separation from both the police department and his handler, coupled with Rak and his handler’s lack of continuous K-9 training and certifications, disqualified them both from conducting police narcotics investigations and making arrests.
If the need for a K-9 arises in Winfield, the town’s department will call upon its law enforcement partners from the Lake County Sheriff’s Department, Crown Point, and the Merrillville police departments for immediate assistance, Byrd said.
Winfield Town Attorney David Austgen said Clayton and his family took on the care of and responsibility of Rak after he became injured while housed in an area clinic.
“The record should reflect that for the past eight months plus or minus Rak has been well trained, well cared for and well preserved,” Austgen said.
Clayton said he and his family have taken on the care of Rak and have been responsible for all his expenses since he came under their care.
“We were told to bring him back and then he sat there,” Clayton said, in reference to the clinic.
Clayton said he visited Rak, after he had been taken to the Hobart Animal Clinic earlier this year by town officials and it was there that the dog had injured his own tail which had to be amputated
He said officials at the clinic agreed Rak should be removed and so he took him home.
Hobart Animal Clinic officials could not comment on whether Rak had been a patient or stayed there due to privacy laws that apply to animals.
Clayton said he and his family have been criticized on social media, particularly by a non-Winfield resident and former town employee who was scheduled to speak under public comment.
“I want to call off the blatant allegations…This dog is well cared for and well loved,” Clayton said.
He said Rak is not malnourished but is rather a happy and healthy addition to his family.
“This dog eats everything,” he said.
Michael Green, the Crown Point resident who had requested to speak, said work restraints kept him from attending the meeting but he did have questions about Rak including the dog’s condition and why the Clayton family was the one that took him in.
Green denied he was harassing Clayton or his family or anyone on the town council, but rather he just wanted some answers.
“You’re allowed to criticize public figures and the town’s Facebook forum is a public forum,” Green said.
Town Councilman David Anderson, R-at-large, said after the meeting, it was K-9 donor Marie Buckingham who is at fault for the town keeping Rak in the Hobart Animal Clinic as long as they did.
Anderson said town officials had contacted Buckingham after the dog was returned to the area, from where the dog’s former trainer had taken him, but she said she didn’t want him but only the money she had invested in him.
“They all lied to you,” said Buckingham, when reached after the town council meeting.
She denied she asked town officials for money and never once was she offered the return of Rak.
“They refused to tell me where Rak was,” Buckingham said.
If the town had returned Rak to her, she said she would have donated him to a police department in Porter County that needed a K-9.
Buckingham, a Lakes of the Four Seasons resident, donated Rak to the police department at a Winfield Town Council meeting nearly four years ago in honor of her son, Ryan Adam Kelly, after he was hit from behind by an impaired truck driver on Nov. 19, 2010, while driving to work. He died six days later after spending nearly a week in a coma.
Buckingham subsequently founded VOID Inc., or Victims of Impaired Driving, the Ryan Adam Kelly Foundation, early on after her son’s death.
She hoped that Rak, a trained black Labrador retriever, would be able to serve with the police department for 10 years or more instead of the 18 months he served.
“They (town officials) have mentally and physically destroyed the dog. He had an 8-10 year career ahead of him and they destroyed that,” she said.
Buckingham said she was able to obtain a 75-page medical report on Rak when he was taken to the Hobart Animal Clinic for care by Clayton and family members, and the dog’s condition sounded far from healthy earlier in the year.
She said the report from the clinic shows Rak’s tail had to be amputated twice. He also suffered behavioral problems, ear infections, an E. coli infection and was malnourished.
“He (Rak) never had any of those issues before that,” she said.
Buckingham believes town officials haven’t been above board with her when it comes to answering questions about Rak’s whereabouts.
She also believes town officials have mischaracterized her and the purposes of her foundation in a Winfield Town Facebook statement posted earlier this summer, referring to her as “one of the numerous donors.”
The town statement provided a history of what had taken place within the police department, including that of Rak’s handler, Garpow, who was placed on leave at about the same time as former Town Marshal Dan Ball.
Both resigned late last year.
The town’s online statement read, in part:
“In the intervening period, one of the numerous donors who helped raise funds to contribute to the initiative of adding a K-9 began posting online that she was Rak’s owner prompting the town council to reach out to investigate what she meant by the statement.”
“The donor also stated that she wanted Rak returned to her and believed that she was entitled to $16,000 by virtue of her donation efforts, the frustration she faced by the former officers and the purported contract,” the town’s statement read in part.
Buckingham said reference to her as one of the donors was not accurate.
“Rak belongs to my foundation. He was dedicated and not donated,” said Buckingham, pointing to a copy of the Jan. 25, 2022, Winfield Town Council minutes, which stated: “49 percent of Rak belongs to the Winfield Police Department and 51 percent belongs to Marie to ensure that Rak will stay to serve Winfield.”
Winfield town officials have refuted her ownership claim in the statement posted on their website: “As of this date, no contract has been found or presented either in town records or by the donor to support her request for a return of the donation made to the K-9 fund.”
Since the Jan. 28 Winfield Town Council, when Buckingham inquired about the dog’s whereabouts and threatened possible legal action, communications have been between Brett Galvan, Buckingham’s attorney, and town officials, including the town’s attorney.
In a statement, Galvan said: “Ms. Buckingham worked tirelessly, without any interest or personal or monetary gain, to provide a tribute for her late son. The stress this has put on her and her family is tremendous and uncalled for. One minute the town was open and eager to resolve this issue and the next minute it was silent.”
Deborah Laverty is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.
