Every so often, Mercer County Sheriff’s Officer Pat Papero looks back in his rearview mirror while driving, expecting to see the familiar face of his German shepherd, K9 Officer Nero. The pair has worked together for the last seven years, patrolling the Trenton-Mercer Airport, doing security sweeps at large events, tracking and apprehending criminals.
So when a silence uncharacteristic of Nero falls over the car, he checks to make sure the dog is OK.
Then he remembers. After a 3 p.m.–1 a.m. shift at the airport March 1, Papero and Nero drove home and went to bed. Papero woke up the next day, but Nero didn’t. The dog had died of an undetermined illness in his sleep.
Papero went to take his other dog, a boxer, outside, but noticed Nero wasn’t moving when he passed the dog’s crate—“Hey, lazy, wake up,” he said.
“I went over and I’m thinking to myself, ‘He’s never still sleeping,’” Papero said. “Once he hears me walking around the house, he’s up. He’s intense, he’s alert, he’s ready to go. When I walked over to the cage, and I saw him, and he looked peaceful—that was probably the only thing that gave me any satisfaction, that I knew he wasn’t in any pain.”
Papero, a Hamilton native, graduated from the Trenton Police Academy in August 2002. Soon after, he was transferred up to the Trenton-Mercer Airport unit, and in 2009, he underwent K9 training through the New Jersey State Police. Each dog that passes through the program is trained and treated the same to ensure uniformity across the state.
Police dogs are generally bred overseas, where they also undergo some training. A dog broker, in this case Connecticut Canine Services, brought Papero and his fellow trainees 19 dogs to choose from.
As soon as he saw Nero, Papero knew he found his partner.
“He was intense,” Papero said. “Some of the dogs came in and some were nervous, were scared, some seemed uninterested. The intensity of his face, I picked him as soon as he came in. I told them, ‘Put all the other dogs away.’”
Papero has had dogs his whole life—German shepherds, Italian mastiffs, a boxer—but training a police dog was a whole new world. Each animal goes through rigorous training that includes identifying over a dozen specific odors, indicating when an explosive may be present, tracking and apprehending criminals and more.
The training was intense—even when officers weren’t working with their own dogs, they would act as decoys for their fellow officers and K9s—but Papero knew he picked the perfect dog to endure it with.
The pair finished training and soon started working on dignitary protection assignments, like events featuring First Lady Michelle Obama, former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and former CIA director Gen. David Petraeus. The duo’s two most prominent assignments were the 2014 Super Bowl at MetLife Stadium and a gathering of nearly 100,000 Orthodox Jews celebrating the completion of a seven-and-a-half-year-long study of the Talmud held at the same location in 2012. Nero’s duties included sweeping vehicles and patrolling the area.
The pair worked at the Trenton-Mercer Airport, and Nero also had experience with tracking down crime suspects. Once, Nero was awarded after apprehending a suspect in a stabbing at a Trenton gas station who fought and attempted to flee after being located.
Nero especially loved doing local school demonstrations.
“He knew when he was going,” Papero said. “If you got him out of the car and he heard the noises of the kids, he would pull you through the door. He wanted to get in because he knew it was playtime. Maybe he didn’t care that they had the audience there, but it was playtime for him. When he got in, he put on a show.”
There are seven dogs total in the Mercer County Sheriff’s Office K9 Unit: five bomb dogs, one patrol dog and one bloodhound. The unit was established in 1993 with just two dogs. Today, its officers and dogs assist in the pursuit of missing persons, criminal searches, explosive detection, tracking, security details and more.
Teams often work outside of the county and, as part of the New Jersey Detect and Render Safe Task Force, aid with security checks. They work at locations from transit stations to sports venues, and they are often called upon to search for missing Alzheimer’s patients and lost children. Teams average around 150 assignments each year.
Papero estimates there are around 300 working police dogs in the state. Such a small number makes for a tight-knit K9 community—not just throughout the state, but across the country, too.
Mercer County Sheriff Jack Kemler himself was a K9 officer.
“I feel the plight of K-9 Officer Papero and his family,” he said in an e-mail. “Having served in the K-9 division of the Trenton Police Department earlier in my career, I understand that police dogs are much more than a crime stopping resource. They faithfully become part of the officer’s family and home life, too.”
Word about Nero’s death spread quickly throughout the community, and Papero received over 75 text messages, phone calls and e-mails with messages of support in just a few hours. When he took Nero to NorthStar Veterinary Hospital in Robbinsville that morning, the entire Mercer County Sheriff K9 Unit met him there.
He’s heard from K9 officers from Texas and California, organizations like Officer Down, his former trainer Craig Bunting and Kemler, who Papero said called him as soon as he heard the news.
“It’s unexplainable,” he said. “I guess the trend in society today is to be anti-cop, but that’s such a small percent of the population. When something like this unfortunately happens, you see all the support. It’s a good feeling, but it’s really unexplainable.”
His wife, two children and other family members have been supportive, too—Nero was part of the family.
Papero has started the search for another dog, but so far, none compare to his first partner.
“Every dog I’ve looked at, I was like, ‘Nero did that better,’” he said. “Nero wasn’t that nice, but I know he had my back. It’s going to be tough. It’s a new partner. It’s a process.”
Looking for another dog takes a lot of work—it starts with training and ensuring the dog can perform all of its duties. The bonding comes after.
“When you have a dog at home, you build a bond with that dog,” Papero said. “Maybe you sit down and watch TV with the dog, you take the dog for a walk, you take the dog out, so it’s part of your everyday routine. Until you lose a partner, you don’t realize how big that bond is. It’s a good day when you get to work with a dog. You have a bad day, they make it better. You have a good day, you can’t complain, really. What can you complain about?”
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