Critics Call for LAPD K-9 Unit Moratorium

Critics of the Los Angeles Police Department’s K-9 unit Monday called for a moratorium on the use of dogs to track down suspects until it can be determined whether the animals have been trained to bite people without provocation.

In a letter to the Police Commission, lawyers for two civil rights groups also asked the panel to investigate whether Police Chief Daryl F. Gates has lied about the K-9 unit’s policies and practices.

“Chief Gates has contended that police patrol dogs are not trained to attack suspects on a routine basis, when clear evidence exists to the contrary,” said the letter from lawyers for the American Civil Liberties Union and the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund. The dogs, it continued, “not only attack routinely, but are deployed by their handlers in such a way as to (increase) the risk of such attacks.”

Police Commission President Stanley Sheinbaum said earlier this month that the panel would look into the practices of the K-9 unit after CBS television aired a graphic video of an unarmed 14-year-old car theft suspect being attacked by an LAPD police dog.

In the video, an officer says that “patrol dogs” are allowed to bite suspects as a reward at the end of a search. Gates has insisted that the officer was referring to military dogs, not “search dogs,” as, he contends, animals in the K-9 unit are called.

At a press conference Monday, the ACLU lawyers distributed what they said were copies of court documents in which LAPD personnel frequently referred to the K-9 dogs as “patrol dogs.”

The call for the moratorium and audit of the K-9 unit was prompted, the letter said, by Gates’ attempt to “create a semantic diversion.”

A Police Department spokesman would not respond to the allegations, other than to say Gates has only the highest regard for the K-9 unit.

City Councilman Mark Ridley-Thomas, in a motion Friday, urged the council to ask the Police Commission to declare a similar moratorium and conduct an audit. The request was sent to a committee for action before it is debated by the full council.

“I’m deeply concerned this is another use of excessive force,” Ridley-Thomas said Monday.

The civil rights lawyers--who have filed a class-action lawsuit against the city over the department’s use of police dogs--made note of court documents in which, they contend, police supervisors admit that K-9 unit dogs are trained to “find and bite.”

Members of the Police Commission could not be reached for comment Monday and are not expected to meet again until Jan. 7. There are as many as 45 lawsuits pending against the department involving allegations that dogs attacked people without reason.