Union County Sheriff’s K9 training equipment vandalized at fairgrounds

The Union County Sheriff’s Office said vandals demolished the training equipment used by Deputy Dane Jensen and K9 Molly at the Union County Fairgrounds, knocking out a wooden obstacle that helped keep the county’s only K9 team certified and ready for work.

That matters because Molly is not a spare unit. She is the sheriff’s office’s sole K9, a Dutch shepherd handled by Jensen, who must log at least 15 hours of training each month with her to keep her certification current. The damaged structure was part of that routine, hands-on work that supports search, evidence-finding and tracking duties across Union County.

The lost equipment carried more than operational value. The sheriff’s office said the wooden training structure had originally been built and donated by a local community member, turning the vandalism into the destruction of a locally made public-safety resource. The damage at the fairgrounds also puts a county-owned site in the spotlight, since the Union County Fairgrounds in La Grande is used for multiple public purposes, not just law enforcement training.

For the sheriff’s office, the immediate question is how quickly Molly and Jensen can replace a training aid that supports agility, control and other core skills. The broader concern is cost. The K9 program already relies in part on community support, including merchandise sales, with proceeds from some items going toward the reserve and K9 programs. A 2022 donation story said $1,500 could help cover training, travel and gear for Molly and Jensen, underscoring how even a relatively modest repair or replacement bill can hit a small agency’s budget.

The K9 unit has been a visible part of the department’s work since the program was restarted after Jensen’s January 2019 burglary work. Molly’s first major tracking success came in July 2020, when she helped locate a firearm after a drive-by shooting in Cove, a reminder that the training obstacle at the fairgrounds was tied directly to real public-safety outcomes, not just a practice course in the yard.

The sheriff’s office asked anyone with information about the destruction to contact dispatch at 541-963-1017 and ask to speak with Jensen. With one damaged structure now affecting the county’s only K9 team, the incident raises a larger question for Union County: how well are law-enforcement assets protected when they depend on donated equipment, shared public spaces and local trust?