A San Diego Police Department report states that officers received a call about a naked man screaming and running through a pit in a suburb of University City. Once police located the man, who turned out to be a 25-year-old businessman in town for a convention, they claimed that he was under the influence of drugs, and refused instructions to "turn around, turn around."
Moments later in the video, an officer ordered his dog to attack the man, bringing him to the ground immediately. As four other officers pinned the man down and attempted to handcuff him, the dog continued to bite his leg, for 44 seconds.
Civil Rights attorney Donald W. Cook called the officers’ actions "barbaric" and "animalistic."
"It wasn’t necessary to use the dog to begin with and it sure as hell wasn’t necessary or needed or appropriate to let the dog continue to bite," he said to NBC4.
Cook was a part of a group of lawyers who sued the Los Angeles Police Department in 1991 after video footage showed a police dog attacking an unarmed suspect. They settled with the city for $3.6 million and the department pledged to revisit its excessive force regulations. Cook does not represent the defendant in the video.
Cook offered, "It's not just a San Diego problem. It's a problem in any department where they’re letting a dog attack and bite a non-dangerous suspect."
The policy of SDPD is to "give at least two warnings in a loud and clear manner," if possible, before using a canine, but the video shows that no such warning was given.
The K9 officer said he used the dog because he feared that he "posed an immediate threat to officers due to the fact he was clenching his fists and walking towards them."
The officers’ conduct was ruled "reasonable" and "lawful" but the victim still won a $385,000 settlement from the city.
"I take some responsibility because I was under the influence," the dog-bite victim said, "But nothing justifies the cops use of such force." The man admits that he was under the influence of drugs, and says that he spent two weeks in the hospital after the attacks and has lost the full use of his right leg for the rest of his life.
He was not charged with any crime.
