Steelers QB helps out Harris Co. Sheriff's Office

HOUSTON

A generous donation is helping out the Sheriff's Office K-9 unit. One guy that is not happy with Houston is Pittsburgh Steelers QB Ben Roethlisberger. We sent him home on crutches after the Texans' 17-10 victory. But, Big Ben as they call him, seems to have a big heart after making a big donation benefiting the HCSO.

It's no secret that Houston's highways coming from the border are a hub for drug traffickers.

"We probably have just a tremendous flow going through here. Being able to have more dogs, just adding one dog, would give us more time on the freeway," said Sgt. Mike Thomas with HCSO's K-9 unit

Right now, the Sheriff's Office only has 15 dogs in it's K-9 unit. But because of an unlikely donor, whom we were pretty rude to when he came to town last week, they are adding a sixteenth dog.

That's right, it was grant from the Ben Roethlisberger Foundation that will go straight to K94Cops, who then supplies the Sheriff's Office with a trained dog.

"The Texans weren't very friendly to him," said Sgt. Thomas.

The K-9's are trained to be dual-purpose -- either to locate humans and drugs or trained to find humans and bombs. And of course take down unruly suspects.

So after Big Ben's $9,000 grant, maybe the Texans don't have to slam him to the ground quite as hard.

"I'm not a Pittsburgh Steelers fan, but maybe I'm a Ben Roethlisberger fan now," Sgt. Thomas said.

Roethlisberger's foundation provides dogs for law enforcement in the Pittsburgh area and all cities on the Steelers' road schedule. The foundation hopes to add two more cities to this list this year, but that's only if they make the playoffs.

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