July 30 — As two officers and a police dog staked out Takoma Park, Md., in September 1995 for suspected burglars, they came upon two men sitting on the roof of a printing business and ordered them to descend and surrender.
What happened next placed the Prince George's County police canine unit in the cross hairs of federal investigators and prosecutors, and has raised questions about how police dogs are used in departments across the country, especially against minority suspects. According to a criminal indictment, the two men followed police orders and surrendered.
But Cpl. Anthony Delozier allegedly asked his partner if the police dog could "take a bite out of" one of the men. Officer Stephanie Mohr allegedly released the canine, which attacked one of the men, an unarmed, homeless Mexican immigrant whose wounds required stitches.
On Tuesday, the two police officers will go to trial in federal court on civil rights and conspiracy charges related to the 1995 attack, and the judge has allowed into evidence several prior claims that Mohr allowed or caused her dog to attack unresisting people, all of whom were minorities.
Following the 1995 incident, the FBI launched a probe of the canine unit and scads of lawsuits have been filed against the department.
Dogs With Metal Teeth
The Prince George's County saga is just one of several recent police use-of-force cases involving suspects or innocent civilians claiming to have been wrongly targeted by police canines. In many cases, the alleged victims were minorities, who civil rights groups say are disproportionately attacked by police dogs.
In one notable incident, a man who was bitten several times during a 1999 arrest in Salt Lake County, Utah, filed a federal lawsuit earlier this month against Bear and Ben, the dogs that bit him. The man also claims the dogs' handlers taunted him, calling him "doggie boy" and barking at him.
Dogs have been used increasingly over the last few decades in police work to help sniff out everything from suspects in hiding to missing persons, explosives, narcotics, and even illegally poached meat.
Most police dogs are German shepherds imported from Europe because of superior breeding and characteristics. These dogs have extremely powerful jaws that can exert between 1,000 and 2,000 pounds of pressure per square inch. Their bite, of course, can be quite devastating, often leaving gaping puncture wounds, torn flesh and searing pain.
These days, police dogs are even being fitted for titanium teeth on their canine incisors to protect their teeth. The effect is even more frightening for those who find themselves in the glare of a snarling canine officer.
Although police dogs are living beings, they are in reality no different from any lethal weapon police officers wield, says David Harris, a professor of law and values at the University of Toledo College of Law. Highly trained police dogs rarely attack unless at the command of their handlers.
"They're considered tools of the police officer just like a radio or a Mace can or a billy club," he said.
'Bitten While Black'
In a dubious moment in police dog history, they were used during the race riots and civil rights marches of the 1960s to control crowds. Images of vicious dogs being used against blacks by white police commissioners such as the infamous "Bull" Connor of Birmingham, Ala., are legendary.
For civil rights groups, recent alleged misuse of police canines is a bit too reminiscent of the 1960s.
"This is just part of long legacy of the treatment of people of color in this country," says King Downing, the national racial profiling coordinator for the American Civil Liberties Union, who calls this phenomenon "Bitten While Black."
The ACLU argues that police dogs should only be used when a suspect has committed a violent felony, is believed to be armed, or where there's probable cause the suspect poses a serious threat. It also calls for better training of handlers and recordkeeping of incidents involving canines.
Amnesty International has called for police departments to follow the lead of the Los Angeles Police Department and adopt a less aggressive "find and bark" policy as opposed to the self-explanatory "find and bite." Under "find and bark," police dogs trail a suspect and then corner him instead of biting.
Since the 1995 incident involving the unarmed homeless man, Prince George's County has also adopted the "find and bark" strategy.
"Dogs need to be used as a last resort — not a first line of defense for the officer," says Van Jones of the San Francisco-based Ella Baker Center for Human Rights.
The Bark As Good As the Bite?
But Jim Watson, national secretary of the North American Police Work Dog Association, says canine policy must be left up to police departments. In some cases, "find and bark" could end up being deadly for the handler if confronted with an armed suspect.
In the end, he says, what's important isn't so much which policy is used but how much power the handler has over the dog's actions. "Both rely on the same basic principle of control. Without control you will not have the finished product," Watson says.
Allegations of police brutality involving canines must be looked at on a case-by-case basis, Watson says. Investigators must look at the initial training of the canine officers and whether they are required to continue training while on the job.
Fewer than 10 states have mandatory testing for canine units before the dogs can hit the streets, Watson says.
In a situation where a canine has allegedly been misused, says Harris, investigators first must look to see if the department had the proper training, procedures, and a policy in place for the use of the dogs. Then, the focus falls on the officers themselves and whether they acted in accordance with the policy.
"Dogs can be a big help like any other tool, but they have to be used properly," Harris says. "There has to be training on both ends of the leash, and there has to be good policy on using the dogs properly."
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