Soledad prison cell-phone smugglers meet K-9 match

BY KIMBER SOLANA, SOLEDAD — A metal locker is covered in rust, the cord of a small television hanging on its side.

In a dimly lit bunker at the California Training Facility, about a dozen of these lockers stand next to a set of bunk beds. The room is unassuming and quiet, except for the heavy panting of a black German shepherd.

The dog sniffs the worn mattress, then moves past a box filled with paper. After its handler, Officer Oscar Covarrubias, opens one of the rusty lockers, the German shepherd pokes its head in and immediately sits.

"Good girl," Covarrubias says. Inside the locker, a small white water pitcher is on the bottom shelf. Inside it is a pink cellular phone — a Motorola RAZR.

"Ida" is part of a new initiative by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation to combat a common prison problem — the smuggling of cell phones.[continue reading on The Californian...]