Mountain View City Attorney Michael Martello said the city may face a possible lawsuit after a police dog bit a man Saturday, causing injuries that required stitches.
``It's an unfortunate incident,'' he said. ``It certainly wasn't the gentleman's fault.'
About 1 a.m. Saturday on the 2700 block of El Camino Real, an undercover officer on a bicycle saw Patrick Terry of Jacksonville, Fla., arguing with his girlfriend, said Mountain View Police Chief Scott Vermeer. The officer asked whether everything was OK, and the man told him to go away, Vermeer said.
A police car drove past and, according to Vermeer, Terry ``said something like if police get involved, I'm going to assault them.''
As the couple started walking away, the undercover police officer heard the woman shout something and decided to intervene, Vermeer said. He flashed his badge and weapon and called for backup. Minutes later, a police car with a canine unit arrived. As police officers handcuffed the man at gunpoint because they believed a domestic assault had taken place, a police dog named Tino ran out of the car and bit Terry several times on his thigh while he was on the ground.
Police took Terry to El Camino Hospital, where he received stitches. After talking to both parties, police decided Terry wasn't assaulting his girlfriend, so they didn't arrest him or press charges, Vermeer said.
Efforts to contact Terry on Tuesday were not successful.
Police are conducting an internal investigation, but Vermeer said there isn't any indication at this point that the officer ordered the German shepherd even to leave the car, much less to bite someone.
``He was probably thinking the officer was in danger,'' Vermeer said of Tino, who has been with the department for several years.
It seems as if the officer and dog just miscommunicated, city attorney Martello said.
``Police dogs are an invaluable resource and really protect people and officers, but they're dogs,'' he said. ``They're trained to a certain extent, but they can get confused in certain situations and it sounds like that's what happened here.''
But Don Letcher, a retired Sunnyvale public safety officer said police dogs are very well-trained.
``They would never attack without getting the order from an officer,'' said Letcher, who spent 20 years on the Sunnyvale force but was not a member of a canine unit. ``It's like a gun. It's the user that's responsible for the actions of the dog.''
Vermeer confirmed that Mountain View's police dogs undergo rigorous training in Europe. Only the best make the cut before being sent to the United States, Vermeer said. And the city's police dogs get weekly refresher training to reinforce concepts they learn.
But they're not immune from making mistakes, he said.
``There are times when dogs, as animals, don't do what we want them to,'' Vermeer said.
Tino will be evaluated to see whether he should be retrained and can remain with the force, Martello said. What is known about the dog so far, Martello said, is that when he was ordered to stop attacking, he did so immediately.
Martello said that in the 10 years he has worked for the city, there have been several cases in which police dogs attacked people they weren't supposed to, but no one has sued.
FAIR USE NOTICE: This page contains copyrighted material the use of which has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. NoNonsense English offers this material non-commercially for research and educational purposes. I believe this constitutes a fair use of any such copyrighted material as provided for in 17 U.S.C § 107. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond fair use, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner, i.e. the media service or newspaper which first published the article online and which is indicated at the top of the article unless otherwise specified.