A police officer in Bristol is mourning the loss of a K-9 who served with the Bristol Police Department for nearly a decade.
K-9 Bronn died over the weekend, Officer Conor Hogan wrote on the department’s K-9 Unit Facebook page on Sunday.
“Yesterday our family lost our protector,” Hogan wrote. “I spent about 30 minutes typing, deleting and retyping that first sentence because it’s really hard to describe what Bronn was for us and what he did for my family.”
Hogan said he was selected as a K-9 handler in spring 2014 and he picked up Bronn in August. The animal was born on Jan. 1, 2013, and was originally named, “Fugi,” according to his passport from the Czech Republic. Hogan said he quickly renamed him Bronn, which he believed was fitting for a “warrior and protector.”
The pair entered the Connecticut State Police 170th Patrol K-9 School in September 2014 and were ready for patrol by December after Bronn was certified in tracking, suspect apprehension, building search and evidence recovery. Hogan and Bronn later attended the 186th Narcotics Detection School in 2017 where Bronn was cross-trained to find drugs.
“Bronn was fierce, chaotic, loyal while somehow having an ‘off switch’ where I could take him into a school for kids to pet him or trust him with my then toddlers as they poked his eyes, pulled his ears and tail while he laid quiet and calm and took it,” Hogan wrote.
In December 2023, Bronn retired from duty and Hogan returned to regular patrol work.
At home, Hogan said Bronn would lay patiently on his bed until a member of the family would make any kind of movement.
“I know he was probably hoping to be fed or let outside, but part of me thinks he was just being a shadow to his family, making sure he was there,” Hogan wrote.
“I’ll miss a lot about Bronn, but I know he passed away surrounded with love, with Larissa and I by his side in a room full of K-9 handlers with a ball in his mouth. Rest easy bud.”