Lawsuit Charges Improper Use of Police Dogs : Law enforcement: Rights group says hundreds of people who posed no threat to officers have been mauled by LAPD canines. Most of those attacked by animals are blacks or Latinos, attorneys assert.

A coalition of civil rights groups and public interest lawyers filed a class-action suit Monday against the Los Angeles Police Department, alleging that it has used police dogs to maul hundreds of people--most of them black and Latino--who posed no threat to officers.

The suit, which names Police Chief Daryl F. Gates and members of the LAPD K9 unit as defendants, says that more than 900 people have been bitten by LAPD dogs over the past three years--a figure confirmed by the officer in charge of the K9 unit.

It alleges that the dogs frequently inflict serious injuries, that using them in nonviolent situations constitutes excessive force, that dog handlers receive inadequate training and supervision, and that the animals are used in a manner that is racially discriminatory, and therefore unconstitutional.

“The dogs are routinely sent out in nonviolent situations,” said Barry Litt, one of the public interest lawyers bringing the suit. “These dogs are trained to attack and maul. . . . It’s like a live chain saw. It is literally unleashing vicious animals with no justification whatsoever.”

The suit, filed in Los Angeles Superior Court by the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund and two private law firms, asks that the 17-dog K9 unit be shut down “until dog handlers and dogs are adequately selected, trained, supervised and disciplined.”

LAPD officials declined comment on the suit. But Lt. Pete Durham, the LAPD officer in charge of the K9 search unit, said the dogs are used only to track down felony suspects, or misdemeanor suspects who are known to be armed. He said the unit has conducted 6,700 searches in the past three years.

“We’re not chasing shoplifters and we’re not going after traffic violators,” Durham said. “We’re looking for bad guys.”

The suit comes as the department is under intense scrutiny in the wake of the police beating of Altadena motorist Rodney G. King. The Christopher Commission, an independent panel investigating the LAPD, has already heard testimony about the use of police dogs, and the commission’s lawyer said Monday that the panel is looking into the issue as part of its examination of the use of excessive force.

“There has been litigation involving dogs--not just this lawsuit, but people who claim they have been improperly injured by LAPD K-9 units,” said lawyer John Spiegel. “We’re looking at those cases.”

The class-action suit, which was announced at an ACLU press conference against the backdrop of graphic photographs of people who have been bitten, is an outgrowth of those other cases, according to lawyer Litt. He said the coalition is attempting to demonstrate that there is an “underlying practice” at the LAPD that needs to be changed.

Specifically, the group wants the LAPD to alter a policy that allows police dogs to be used in detecting and apprehending suspects when there is “a reasonable suspicion of the suspects involvement in criminal activity.” The plaintiffs maintain that this policy--which it calls “find and bite”--gives the LAPD free license to use the police dogs in situations that are not threatening to officers.

Instead, the coalition wants to require that police dogs be subject to the department’s deadly force policy, which would prohibit their use unless officers believed a suspect posed a serious threat of death or physical injury to the officers or other citizens.

“The police dogs used by the LAPD are male dogs chosen for their aggressive behavior,” the suit states. “The force of their jaws when they bite a person is equal to nearly 900 pounds per inch. Bite wounds from police dog attacks are often indistinguishable from gunshot wounds, leaving gaping wounds, massive tissue and muscle damage and the possibility of serious infection.”

But Durham dismissed that allegation, saying the LAPD specifically shies away from aggressive dogs. “I want a dog that goes out there and likes to hunt,” Durham said. “I do not want a vicious dog. I do not want an aggressive dog. My dogs live with my handlers, in and around their families. If we have a vicious dog, we fail them.”

Durham said the LAPD has been using police dogs for 10 years. He said the search unit’s 17 dogs--15 German shepherds and two Rottweilers--are highly successful at finding people who are hiding from police, and are also instrumental in making sure that officers do not get hurt.

Among the suspects who have been ferreted out by LAPD dogs are the two citizen plaintiffs in the suit: Rena Brown, 31, and Jay Dale, 22, both of Los Angeles. The suit states that Brown, a suspect in a grand theft auto case, was “severely mauled” last November by a police dog that discovered him hiding under the back of a house.

Dale, who was suspected of burglary, was bitten in the arms, torso and legs by a dog that found him hiding near a trash dumpster in Hollywood, according to the suit. In both instances, the suit alleged, police witnessed the confrontations and did not call the dogs off.

While Brown and Dale were not at Monday’s press conference, 17-year-old Curtis King of Hollywood, did attend and told reporters that he was bitten by an LAPD dog three years ago after he and some friends went joy riding in a stolen car. When police gave chase, the youths parked the car and scattered, with King hiding under a bungalow.

According to King, a police dog discovered him, bit his arm and dragged him to where he was in view of the officers. After the officers ordered him to put his hands behind his back and lie on the ground, he said, they commanded the dog to “chew.” Durham, however, said there is no “chew” command.

“They just told the dog to chew and the dog started chewing on my leg and I started screaming,” he said. King said officers then ordered the dog to stop and told him that unless he led them to his companions, they would order the dog to chew again.

King, who is now suing the LAPD, also complained that he waited in the police station for more than an hour before officers took him to a hospital, where he received stitches. Lawyer Donald Cook, who represents King, said the youth was not charged with any crime as a result of the joy-riding incident.

In addition to filing the suit, Cook also sent a letter to Police Commission Acting President Melanie Lomax Monday asking her to investigate the LAPD’s use of police dogs. The letter included charts, based on LAPD statistics, that show dog bites occur most frequently in city neighborhoods where the population is primarily black.

Cook also contrasted the LAPD’s dog bite rates to those of other police departments. While LAPD dogs bite people “on an average of once a day,” his letter said that in Philadelphia, there were no dog bites for the first four months of this year and in Houston, there have been five dog bites this year.

Durham said that while there is no national standard for bite rates, his statistics show that when compared to police departments that count dog bites in the same manner as the LAPD, his unit is “about average.”