LA OKs police dog donation after looking into whether Jurupa Valley provider’s name evokes Nazi history
By City News Service | news@socalnews.com
UPDATED: September 11, 2024 at 5:18 p.m.
The Los Angeles City Council on Tuesday approved a donation of two police dogs after declining the request three months ago when a council member raised concerns about Jurupa Valley-based Adlerhorst International, the company that is providing the animals.
The vote was 9-5, with council members Eunisses Hernandez, Katy Yaroslavsky, Heather Hutt, Nithya Raman and Hugo Soto-Martinez opposed.
“We received assurances from the company, LAPD and others — Intent does not erase impact,” Hernandez said. “Assurances do not remove the historical weight and trauma that the name Adlerhorst still carries.”
“We as a city should not pick and choose whom we protect and how. We cannot risk embedding dangerous patterns of insensitivity in our institutions,” she added.
In June, Councilman Bob Blumenfield, who is Jewish, requested that the council hold off on the donation and send it back to the Public Safety Committee for further scrutiny due to the word Adlerhorst’s relation with Adolf Hitler and Nazi history.
On Aug. 27, the five-member committee voted 4-1 to approve the donation, with Councilman Hugo Soto-Martinez opposing it. In a letter to the committee, Blumenfield expressed his support for the donation after looking into the matter.
“… I could not vote in favor of doing business with, or even, accepting a donation from, a company that was intentionally glorifying Hitler and I needed time to research and understand why the company was using such a name,” the letter read.
Blumenfield said he met with Los Angeles Police Department officials and the owner of Adlerhorst to learn more about the history of the company and the origin of its use of the name. The owner personally assured Blumenfield that the company’s name was not intended to have any connection to Hitler.
A representative for Adlerhorst told City News Service that owner Michael Reaver met Blumenfield and discussed the issue.
“The current owner told me about how his father named the company after the bloodline of the original dog that inspired the creation of the company, and how he and his father abhor Hitler’s ideology,” the councilman wrote.
Blumenfield also noted he spoke with a representative of the Anti-Defamation League, an organization that tracks neo-Nazis and extremists. According to the league, there are no known ties between the owner or the company to neo-Nazis or other antisemitic extremists groups.
“While I still have some concern about the name awakening traumatic feelings in survivors or family members of survivors, I am satisfied that there is no intended or actual association of Adlerhorst International, LLC to Hitler, his ideology or anti-Semitism,” according to Blumenfield’s letter.
Earlier this year, the Board of Police Commissioners approved a transmittal regarding the donation of the two dogs — with a value of $26,900 — for the Metropolitan Division’s K-9 Platoon. According to the department, the two dogs would replace another pair who have retired out of the program due to old age and health concerns.
The L.A. Police Foundation is an independent, not-for-profit organization that provides funding and support to the LAPD. Donations from the foundation have helped the department update technology and conduct specialized training.
An invoice transmitted to the council states that the dogs would be coming from Adlerhorst International, located at 3951 Vernon Ave. in Jurupa Valley.
In 2021, Vice News reported on the company, which it described as one of the “biggest K-9 training facilities in the country, supplying dogs for more than 300 police agencies.”
Adlerhorst, which means “Eagle’s Nest” in German, was a World War II bunker complex built to hide Hitler in the Bavarian Alps. The location also served as Hitler’s command post in December 1944 and January 1945.
Vice reported that Reaver, a pioneering police K-9 trainer, had been sued dozens of times related to alleged injuries caused by the dogs that come from his facility. Reaver has denied allegations of racism in the past, saying the company’s name comes from a German kennel where he bought a dog in the 1960s. He launched his company in 1976.
Originally Published: September 10, 2024 at 4:02 p.m.