Overview

• The Metropolitan Police held a memorial on September 23 at an animal cemetery in Tokyo’s Itabashi Ward to remember 12 police dogs interred over the past year.
• About 28 to 30 personnel from the forensics and Security 2 divisions attended alongside police dogs, according to the two reports.
• Labrador Illumina, who died in February at 16, was dispatched 117 times over about six and a half years and earned the Commissioner General's Award twice, including for finding a handgun hidden in a wall during a 2017 drug investigation.
• Labrador Skipper, a blood-search dog trained to locate traces of blood by scent, died in June at age nine.
• Forensics division chief Takahiro Hata said the dogs served as members of his unit and offered a message of deep gratitude for their work.