A man was sleeping in a shed one summer night when suddenly, a K-9 police dog attacked him, biting his leg for more than 40 seconds, despite his constant protest of innocence. According to CBS News, this scene played out on a night in June 2020 in a shed in Mountain View. Joel Alejo was approached by the Palo Alto Police during a search for a kidnapper on the loose. After handcuffing Alejo, officers ultimately determined that he was not the man they were searching for.
As a response to stories like Alejo’s, the California legislature is looking to pass bill CA AB-742 which prohibits a police canine from being used to bite unless there is an imminent threat to police or civilian safety. The bill has since been filed as inactive and will not be discussed until 2024, reported by LegiScan.
Unfortunately, stories like Alejo’s are not hard to come across. According to the California Department of Justice’s 2021 compilation of police use of force data, injuries inflicted by police K-9s constituted almost 12 percent of incidents leading to severe harm or fatalities. Locally, San Jose Police dogs have bitten 167 people in the last five years, the highest number of dog bites recorded by a police department in California in 2020.
Currently, California laws allow police to decide whether they should use a police dog in a particular situation. However, there are no well-defined statewide criteria outlining when a police officer should employ a police dog. According to Fox News, individual police departments can set their own policies regarding canine use and guidelines for training that were released nearly a decade ago are not mandatory.
Senior Austin Mei believes that K-9 police dogs are unnecessary because of their obedience to their police trainers and [indiscretion].
“When you’re detaining a suspect, you’re not charging them with anything,” Mei said. “But when you release a dog, the dog will indiscriminately attack anyone who has been detained but not charged.”
According to a ScienceDirect research article, trained dog bites can be more like shark attacks. Mei supports the bill and believes K-9 dogs should not be used for biting or suspect detainment.
“The punishment falls under the Eighth Amendment, which is no cruel or unusual punishment,” Mei said. “Police dogs are trained to be a lot more dangerous than regular dogs — they have enough bite force to bite through metal, so if you bite a person, you break a bone or tear a muscle.”
The bill only restricts activities that require biting. Search and rescue, explosive detection, and narcotic detection will still be a legal way of utilizing K-9 dogs in crime.
According to Palo Alto Chief Binder’s article reporting on recent police activities, bites are rarely necessary because a suspect will often surrender when notified of the presence of a canine police dog. The blog also reports that any case of canine apprehension is audited by independent oversight agencies.
According to the bill’s website, Assemblymembers Corey Jackson (D-60) and Ash Kalra (D-25), authors of the bill, argue that the racial disparities in the deployment of K-9 dogs were vital to the decision.
“This bill marks a turning point in the fight to end this cruel and inhumane practice and build trust between the police and the communities they serve,” Jackson said.
The bill emphasizes the disproportionate rates at which police dogs attack people of color. The CA/HI NAACP, a co-sponsor, attributes these differences to the historical use of police dogs to control enslaved people.
Data from National Electronic Injury Surveillance System show that between 2005-2013, hospitals received 32,951 dog bites due to K-9 dogs injuries. Ninety-five percent of the victims were male while 42 percent of them were Black.
Despite legislative efforts to limit the use of K-9 dogs, police departments are still training new canines to work with officers.
“Canines are an important tool that help us with our mission to keep the community safe,” Chief Binder said. “Their superior senses of smell and hearing help us to locate individuals and contraband, and to apprehend criminal offenders in certain limited circumstances.”