Maple Grove Police Welcome New K-9 and Other Officers

Maple Grove Police Department recently welcomed three new officers, including K-9 officer Gus, to the force, after they were officially sworn in by Mayor Mark Steffenson at the June 16th city council meeting. Chief Eric Werner said Gus and his partner join Judd and his partner on the force currently.

Maple Grove Police Chief Eric Werner in the CCX Media studios in June 2026.

“You bring Gus around or you bring Judd around, the kids come, the families come,” said Chief Werner during his Chat with the Chief segment on CCX Cities. “To us, that’s that relationship building out in the community, as well as that important work they do out in the street: You’re looking for missing people or searching for articles or evidence or ultimately those that are committing crimes, so it’s a fully functional unit for various purposes.”

Gus was joined by Officers Fred Manjanga and Christopher Mann in being sworn in. Chief Werner said his department still needs more officer candidates and is not seeing the number of viable candidates for openings it once did.

“I think we have about eight in background right now, but we are continuously hiring,” Werner said. “We’re trying to hire for not only what we need, but we’re even thinking of what’s called ‘bell-curve hiring,’ where we’re going to go over what our compliment is, so when those vacancies occur, we can slip those trained officers right in to those vacancy spots, so we’ll be fully staffed and trained, not just fully-hired.”

Maple Grove

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