A Conversation with West Windsor Police Chief Robert Garofalo |

West Windsor Police Chief Robert Garofalo, his wife Gloria and their recently certified AIR Dog KiKi.

AIR: You and the police force have been involved with AIR for several years. Please share your thoughts on this partnership.

Chief Garofalo: We are honored to work with Trish and Kurt. They have provided help for so many over the years and no matter when we call, they come running. We have had some horrible situations over the years that truly needed their resources and expertise. Even when the school had a horrible suicide years ago, she was the first to come in with support dogs and help.

I know this is our third year of collecting donations from the officers for the Movember (yes, Movember for men’s health awareness) event. The officers are more than happy to give the donations to Trish and AIR each year due to their care and compassion for all our residents. This year, the officers agreed to keep AIR as the recipient again. I know it’s not much, but every year we manage to get two to three thousand dollars from the officers and in exchange, those who donate can grow their beards for the month of November. Police policy dictates they must be clean shaven and growing their beards brings attention to men’s health and allows them to start a conversation as to making sure everyone gets their preventive screenings and health checks.

AIR: Congratulations on having KiKi become certified as an AIR Therapy Dog.

Chief Garofalo: My wife Gloria and I have three little dogs at home. The youngest, KiKi, is a Maltese, and is the sweetest little girl. We often bring her into work and into the township building to give a little petting time and help with resiliency. Everyone enjoys her visits and she does bring positive energy into their day. We wanted to take this further and truly train her for therapy work and expand her resume to help anyone who is willing to have her brighten their day.

Gloria is really the driving force behind this and is doing scent work with her and therapy work. We chose to work with Trish and Katelyn [Baker, Co-Founders of AIR] at 20 Paws for their phenomenal reputation. I have also worked with all three of our police department Bomb and Narcotics dogs and I have seen Trish and Katelyn in action and can tell you they are great at this.

AIR: Please comment on the current mental health crisis.

Chief Garofalo: I believe our mental health crisis has really spiraled to our highest levels. Our officers are going to mental health calls almost every day, if not every day. The hype in the media would have you believe these officers have no idea how to handle these calls when, in actuality, my officers are without a doubt the best in the state at handling these calls. They have been trained in these situations and have continued training in mental health crisis. You combine that with their training and experience as police officers and their extreme calm and professionalism in crisis situations and I believe you have the best trained people to provide help and care.

Sadly, these officers cannot do it all and once an initial call is made, we need the benefit of someone who is trained and not a first responder who can take over and provide the long-term care that so many need and are not getting. Our officers have no real resource that they can hand over care to and because of this, we return day after day to provide Mntal Health First Aid and care, which many times goes beyond that of a first responder.