KENT - A 23-year-old Akron man said he was the victim of an unprovoked attack early Saturday by a police dog that charged him through a garage door that suddenly opened in the rear of the Kent Police Department station house.
Tyrell L. Fletcher, a respiratory therapy student at Stark State College of Technology in Jackson Township, said he drove to the station about 3:15 a.m. to pick up his foster brother, who had been arrested earlier at a police sobriety checkpoint.
The attack occurred, Fletcher said, when he momentarily left the station to tell a friend who had led him there not to wait because police were processing others from the checkpoint.
``As I was walking from the rear of the police building,'' Fletcher said in a police report, ``the garage door on the south side of the building opened up... and a German shepherd came running out of the door headed toward me.''
It didn't matter that he was a former football player and wrestler at East High School.
Fletcher said he was so scared when the dog charged, he was shaking and his heart was pounding.
``The only thing I could do from there was pray that he did not lock his jaws on my arm,'' he said.
Fletcher was not seriously hurt.
The dog did, however, rip the left pocket of his long-sleeve shirt and scratch him on the left arm, drawing blood, he said.
Fletcher said the K-9's police handler stood near the garage and tried to give the dog voice commands to stop but did not attempt to grab the dog and pull it away.
``The cop never moved,'' he said.
Finally, after he had backpedaled into the street, attempting to block the attack with his arms for 30 seconds or so, he said the dog obeyed one of the officer's commands and stopped.
Fletcher said four or five other officers came to the garage to try to talk to him after he heard them being informed on their walkie-talkies: ``Black male in the rear parking lot, being attacked by a police dog.''
Kent police Capt. Jim Goodlet said he could not comment on why the garage door suddenly opened, or the response by the dog's handler, because the incident was under investigation by the department.
``We are looking at it. We take it seriously,'' Goodlet said.
The dog's handler was identified in the police report only as Patrolman Gilliland, with his identification number.
Goodlet said the dog and its handler will remain on call for duty while the incident is investigated. He declined to comment further except to say that the city's Health Department was notified.
Fletcher said he was most concerned about why the dog did not initially obey the officer's commands to stop and whether the dog had been properly trained to do so.
``A lot of things were going through my head,'' he said. ``I thought these dogs were the smartest in the world. Why would the dog attack me without a command... and has he done it before and will he do it again?''
Fletcher said he spoke to police briefly at the station, then immediately drove to Akron General Medical Center to get a tetanus shot and then drove back to the police station that night to file a report.
He said police offered to reimburse him for the cost of the torn shirt with a receipt for its purchase.
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