Innocent Californians have been mauled by police dogs. Weak legislation doesn’t fix issue | Opinion

Gary Gregory was walking his dog around his mobile park home in Benecia when police, looking for a reported gunman, saw him at the entrance. Complying with police orders, the innocent pedestrian was kneeling with his hands up when a police attack dog freed itself from the police car after its handler left the car door open.

The attack dog tackled Gregory, biting into his neck, rupturing his jugular vein and leaving him with permanent facial scarring, emotional distress and muscle and nerve injury. Videos of the incident show that the dog latched onto Gregory’s neck for 25 seconds, and the police handler had to forcibly remove the dog.

Gregory is just one of many Californians who’ve needlessly suffered from a police dog bite. As physicians who reviewed 30 cases of police attack dog bites in the state that occurred over the past decade, we were disturbed to see the degree of harm people have suffered due to police attack dogs, including permanent injuries, disfigurement and disability.

Opinion

Police dogs generally weigh 70 pounds and can produce a bite force greater than 4,000 pounds per square inch — a pressure equivalent to a rhinoceros balancing on a postage stamp. During a prolonged bite, a dog’s long canine teeth anchor into flesh, while its sharp molars shred and tear the tissue around them. This can result in severed nerves that cause chronic pain or permanent paralysis of an arm or leg, traumatic head injuries, lifelong disabilities and psychiatric illnesses.

Police dogs can be used in positive ways, such as search and rescue or detecting explosives. However, their deployment as a use of force can have significant repercussions and there should be strict limits governing its use.

Right now, the California legislature is considering two bills inspired by the dangers of police attack dog injuries. Unfortunately, neither bill provides appropriate oversight nor meaningfully changes the status quo.

Introduced by Assemblymember Blanca Pacheco, D-Downey, Assembly Bill 3241 would require the Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training to adopt minimum guidelines for the use of police attack dogs and requires agencies to report only legitimate deployments. This may result in police failing to report “accidental” or “unintentional” incidents, both of which occur regularly.

The second bill, AB 2042, as amended by Assemblymember Corey Jackson, D-Perris, would similarly require the commission to develop their own standards and training guidelines for the use of police attack dogs — maintaining the status quo.

Neither bill would have protected Gregory, nor would have Gregory’s injuries been reportable under AB 3241.

The Commission on Peace Office Standards and Training is composed almost entirely of law enforcement personnel. Allowing the commission to only report legitimate deployments while simultaneously allowing them to determine the policies governing deployments could undermine transparency. Furthermore, the power granted to the commission would lack legislative or community checks.

Public records show that nearly half of Californians severely injured or killed by police attack dogs showed signs of a mental health disability or crisis. Using attack dogs on people who are unarmed and do not pose a serious danger to officers or others is inappropriate. However, records show that these instances are the most likely times when California police deploy attack dogs.

As physicians who have both cared for patients severely injured by canines and reviewed dozens of records of police canine injuries, we know that maulings can cause long standing trauma and damage. It is imperative that we develop strong legislation to protect the public from the overuse of police attack dogs. AB 2042 and AB 3241 fail to provide the transparency and legislative checks that should govern a dangerous use of force.

Instead of passing these bills, we call on the California Legislature to truly regulate police attack dogs and enact strict and clear limits of their use into state law. Creating laws delineating the narrow use of police attack dogs and supporting broad reporting of their use can help alleviate the immense suffering we have seen inflicted — oftentimes on innocent people.

William Weber works as an emergency physician at Rush University and serves as medical director of the Medical Justice Alliance, a nonprofit which supports the medical rights of people behind bars. Altaf Saadi is a neurologist and assistant professor of neurology at Harvard Medical School. Minali Nigam, who also contributed to this piece, is a trained journalist and neurology resident at Massachusetts General Hospital and Brigham and Women’s Hospital, teaching hospitals of Harvard Medical School. Weber, Saadi and Nigam are three of six co-authors on “Unleashed Brutality: An Expert Medical Opinion on the Health Harms from California Police Attack Dogs,” published in Physicians for Human Rights in January .