A man bitten badly by a Mountain View police dog early Saturday said he plans to sue the city for racial profiling and police brutality.
Patrick Terry, 25, of Jacksonville, Fla., received internal and external stitches to repair the tears on the back of his left thigh after he was stopped by an undercover officer while arguing with his girlfriend.
For now, he said, he can't climb the cell phone towers he helps build for a living, and the hospital bills are piling up because he doesn't have insurance.
Terry and his girlfriend, Sarah Hill, have contacted the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and local civil rights attorneys about the incident.
``We're anxiously waiting for a written complaint, at which point we plan on moving forward vigorously on this,'' said Rick Callender, president of the local NAACP chapter.
Mountain View police say they are reviewing what happened but haven't started a formal investigation.
Coincidentally, Mountain View Police Chief Steve Vermeer presented a report on racial profiling Thursday evening to the city's Human Relations Commission. The report showed that blacks make up about 2.5 percent of the city's population but represent more than 7 percent of police stops.
Vermeer denied the numbers indicated racial profiling, saying he believes blacks make up a higher percentage of the city's population than census data indicates.
Terry said the officer wouldn't have stopped him if he were not a 6-foot-7 black man walking with a petite white woman. ``And they wouldn't have put the dog on me neither,'' he said.
Police have said the German shepherd, named Tino, attacked Terry without being ordered to, perhaps because he thought officers were in danger. The dog has been taken off active duty.
According to the police report, Terry told police that he and Hill, who have been dating for two years, got into a fight as they walked away from Palo Alto Bowl on Friday night. Hill stalked off angrily, and Terry ran to catch up with her and said, ``Get back here.''
He then saw a police car drive past and said, ``You see? The cops are here.'' He threatened to assault officers if they stopped him, according to the report.
In an interview, Terry said he and a friend had been stopped by police two days earlier for no apparent reason, and that he came from a place where ``cops beat you down for no reason.'' He has lived in a Mountain View hotel since January, helping Hill's father erect cell towers.
The couple continued arguing after the police cruiser drove away. But a nearby man wearing a flannel shirt and riding a bicycle stopped to ask whether Hill was OK. Unknown to Terry, he was Mountain View police officer Reuben Gonzalez, who was undercover on a burglary investigation.
Gonzalez said in the police report that he decided not to identify himself immediately because he had overheard Terry's remark about assaulting officers.
Terry responded to the man's question with obscenities. ``Leave him alone, Patrick,'' Hill later recalled saying. But as Gonzalez starting walking away, he heard Hill yell, ``Get your hands off me.''
Police said the couple were yelling face to face when another officer in a cruiser spotted them and turned on his siren. As the officer started leaving his car, Gonzalez pointed his gun at Terry and told him to get on the ground.
At that point, Hill said, she started screaming.
In an interview, Hill said she realized Gonzalez was a police officer only when the other uniformed officer started helping him detain Terry.
Department rules say officers are supposed to identify themselves before taking enforcement action, but Terry and police officials disagree on when the officer identified himself.
Police handcuffed Terry because they thought he was assaulting Hill, according to the report. After the dog, Tino, suddenly jumped out of the car and started ripping up Terry's jeans, police pulled the dog off and questioned the couple before deciding not to arrest Terry.
Vermeer said it doesn't appear Gonzalez did anything wrong.
``I'm glad he was trying to protect people when he realized there might be a crime taking place,'' Vermeer said. ``I certainly wouldn't want him ignoring a possible domestic violence situation.''
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