LAPD, Dogs and Videotape : Police Commission must fully examine allegations about police dog attacks

Are police dogs ever allowed to bite suspects as a reward?

The Los Angeles Police Commission must answer that and other questions next month when the panel investigates new allegations of excessive use of force by the Los Angeles Police Department.

The allegation about rewarding dogs stems from a graphic videotape of a police dog attacking a car theft suspect who was hiding under a sofa in a back yard. In that tape, which was recently broadcast nationally on the CBS Evening News, the dog appeared to repeatedly bite the unarmed 14-year-old. A K-9 handler explained on the tape that a patrol dog’s reward is to bite the suspect.

The use of a dog to track down the car-theft suspect, who was neither armed nor wanted in any violent crime--and who subsequently never was charged with any offense--raises important questions.

LAPD policy allows the use of police dogs to track down felony suspects or misdemeanor suspects known to be armed. But is there another, informal policy on the streets?

The LAPD tallied about 900 attacks by police dogs in the last three years. How do those statistics compare with the number of police dog attacks in other big cities? In Philadelphia, for example, after stricter controls were imposed, the number of police dog bites dropped to 20 during the same period. That comparison should prompt the Police Commission to consider patterning the canine guidelines after the department’s deadly-force policy, which allows the use of deadly force only when a suspect poses a threat of injury or death to others.

The majority of the K-9 attacks take place in minority neighborhoods. The Christopher Commission, which probed the LAPD after the Rodney King beating incident, found that in cases where police dogs were used nearly 70% of the suspects were African-American or Latino men or youths. Was that correlation merely a reflection of the high crime rates in predominantly black and Latino areas? Or was it a reflection of an aggressive use of police dogs in minority neighborhoods?

The Christopher Commission also heard complaints that some officers allegedly allowed dogs to attack suspects who were already in custody or under control. Similar allegations were made in a class-action lawsuit filed last June. About 45 dog-bite cases are pending against the LAPD.

In response to the tape, Councilman Mark Ridley-Thomas and Councilwoman Joy Picus have introduced a motion calling on the Police Commission to impose a moratorium on the use of police dogs pending a thorough investigation.

Police commissioners have already begun an investigation. The commission must promptly determine whether the LAPD needs to better control its dogs and establish stricter policies.