PROSPECT-LEFFERTS GARDENS — Good dog!
An NYPD-trained pooch sniffed out two illegal handguns and a cache of bullets from the door of a car pulled over by officers in the neighborhood Wednesday, police said.
The dog, ESU-K9 Timoshenko, and his handler, Officer Benny Colecchia, responded to the 71st Precinct shortly after 2 p.m. when officers arrested four men who had been pulled over in a 2009 Maxima traveling on Maple Street near Bedford Avenue in Prospect-Lefferts Gardens with “heavily tinted” windows and a covered rear license plate, police said.
When the officers pulled the vehicle over, they smelled marijuana and discovered pot stored in an open Pringles chip container inside the car.
The men were arrested and they and the car were taken to the nearby precinct station house, police said.
The dog, K9 Timoshenko, was brought in to search the Nissan. Immediately, the dog went to the driver’s side door, grabbed a loose arm rest and ripped it off. Hidden inside were two guns, a Glock 40 and a Smith & Wesson 9MM, both loaded. The Glock had been reported stolen in Rockland County, NYPD said, and both guns had high-capacity magazines.
Police released a photo of K9 Timoshenko laying on a table next to the unloaded handguns and bullets he found Thursday.
Coincidentally, the dog was named after a fallen member of the 71st Precinct, Detective Russel Timoshenko, who was shot and killed during a traffic stop in July 2007, just two-and-a-half blocks from Wednesday’s stop.
Terril Bishop, 25, of Fort Lauderdale, Florida and two Prospect-Lefferts Gardens men, Revor Williams, 25, and Ron Thomas, 34, have been charged with criminal possession of a weapon and possession of marijuana, among other charges, police said. The driver of the Nissan, Jiliani Mitchell, 22, of Queens, has also been charged with a license plate violation.
