 WESTMINSTER (UK) — Throughout
history, dogs have been guardians of the world's financial institutions.
A stone Lion Dog (ancestor of the Pekingese, but a whole lot bigger
and meaner-looking) guards the entrance to the old Bank of China in
Hong Kong.
 On
Wall Street, New York City, you can find a very large German
Shepherd named "Durac" at his post guarding the NY Stock
Exchange (see also WTC
Gallery).
 And
last (as well as least), we have Scoop senior editor
"Wags" guarding a piggy bank. I told him it was full
of jellybeans.
On Thursday, Dec. 5, the HSBC bank on Buckingham Palace Road was the
scene of a siege, attempted robbery and hostage crisis. After two
hours, the drama came to a close, and the gunman was captured thanks to
police dog "Torr" and his handler PC Andy Waittes of the London Metropolitan
Police.
Witnesses said that two men entered the bank just before noon, at
least one of whom was brandishing a handgun. The armed man
jumped on to the counter, taking three female employees hostage.
"We were confronted by the man when he came into the bank.
He tried to grab one of us but we all managed to escape," an
employee describes.
"We got into a room where we all used our bodyweight to keep
the door shut until we could move some cabinets to keep the door
closed."
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Meanwhile a Securior guard who was making a delivery to the bank at the
time caught the second man, an 18-year-old who was arrested on the spot.
"He had him on the floor pinned down and two other members of the
public came over to help him," says witness Peter Holbrook who works
across the street. "Within about seven to eight minutes we had
dozens of police around the bank."
The remaining gunman then fled into the building and disappeared.
Enter: the dog.
Three-year-old Torr, a German Shepherd K-9, set his sniffer right to
work and quickly detected the fugitive hiding in a ventilation
shaft. The 19-year-old man gave himself up without further incident.
 Just
after 2pm, two plain-clothes officers led the man, handcuffed, out of the
bank. Says Deputy Assistant Commissioner Andy Trotter of the City of
Westminster, "This was an excellent conclusion to what was a very
serious situation. I would like to commend PC Waittes and Torr for
their excellent police work."
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