Died 5\/11\/20
\nHandler – Officer Wayne Billhimer<\/p>\n
Department of Game and Inland Fisheries mourns the loss of K9 officer<\/p>\n
The Department of Game and Inland Fisheries (DGIF) is mourning the loss of a four-legged officer. DGIF said on Monday that K9 Justice, a nine-year veteran of the department\u2019s Conservation Police K9 program passed away after a bout with cancer. K9 Justice retired from service on Jan. 22, 2020. Partnered with Senior CPO Wayne Billhimer, he and his wife Molly, adopted Justice and cared for him during his retirement and treatment. \u201cIt\u2019s hard to put into words, the bond we shared. He was part of my family,\u201d Billhimer said. \u201cHe was truly my best friend, who I, fortunately, got to take to work with me.\u201d The pair worked together of evidence detection, suspect tracking, missing person searches, wildlife violation identification and public outreach. K9 Justice and Billhimer\u2019s most notable cases was a successful three-mile track of a suspected turkey poacher in Shenandoah County. That case resulted in a seizure of 52 pairs of turkey wings and a conviction for the suspect. \u201cThe seizures related to that case are on display in the lobby at DGIF headquarters,\u201d Naff noted. \u201cI don\u2019t think that he viewed tracking bad guys or finding hidden guns as work; it was a game to him, which he loved,\u201d Billhimer said. \u201cI think that\u2019s what made him excel and be one of the top K9s. It was fun to him to find lost children, track down fugitives running from us, or uncover someone hiding too many trout. It was something he enjoyed doing. \u201cJustice taught me lots of things in our time together, but one thing that stands out is perseverance,\u201d Billhimer continued. \u201cSome of the hardest cases we did were older cases, so we didn\u2019t start working the case until a few days after the crime. Justice would push through and never give up. The only time he would stop was when I would physically stop him and say, \u2018We\u2019re done.\u2019 We tracked a suspect once and went seven miles. I was exhausted, but not once did Justice give up. He just kept going.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Died 5\/11\/20 Handler – Officer Wayne Billhimer Department of Game and Inland Fisheries mourns the loss of K9 officer The Department of Game and Inland Fisheries (DGIF) is mourning the loss of a four-legged officer. DGIF said on Monday that K9 Justice, a nine-year veteran of the department\u2019s Conservation Police K9 program passed away after …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8458,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[17],"class_list":["post-8455","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","","category-k9memorial","tag-va"],"yoast_head":"\n