Man says police dog bite left him ‘shaking’

The Regina Police Service (RPS) described it simply as a “contact,” but for Linus Kaysaywaysemat it felt like something a lot worse when an RPS K9 unit dog clasped its jaws around him last Thursday evening.

“I asked any one of my kids if they (had) seen what happened; one of my boys said he (had) seen the dog bite my arm, and when the dog let go of my arm, that the dog ’s teeth were bloody,” Kaysaywaysemat said Tuesday as he addressed media at RPS headquarters.

Police were chasing one of two suspects over an alleged attempted murder that had happened in North Central early that morning when, some time after 8 p.m., Kaysaywaysemat stepped out onto his step for a smoke.

When he did, a police dog involved in the hunt came through his alley and attacked him.

The reason he had to ask his children — he has three girls and two boys — for details, he says, is because he was afraid to look the dog in the eye in case it bit him in the face.

“It happened so quick that I didn’t even have time to react,” Kaysaywaysemat said. “The dog … chewed on my arm for, I dunno, a couple of minutes. It locked on and it was quite the experience to go through and have my children witness it. I didn’t want to run. If I ran I looked like a bad guy. So, either way I just sat there and I took it.”

Just two nights before Kaysaywaysemat was bitten, an RPS dog undergoing training bit a bystander at the 1700 block of Arthur Street.

This led Supt. Darcy Koch to give a media briefing Tuesday to address the incidents, with Kaysaywaysemat showing up to voice his agitation in person.

“Any time that happens, of course it’s a concern for us, and we’re definitely going to review what happened out there, and get all the information on how it happened,” Koch said. “And make sure that our standard operating procedures are in place, and that we’re operating within those procedures, and make any corrections that might come of that.

“Of course they’re upset about it,” he said of the victims. “We’re upset about it. We don’t want those things to happen at any time.”

He said the dogs involved, two German shepherds that were leashed during the incidents, have not been removed from service. Koch said both incidents are under review by the RPS’s use of force review committee, adding that the dogs meet provincial standards and are trained every month, with a full week of training twice a year.

In statistics provided via email by the RPS, to date in 2017, 100 useof-force incidents have involved a canine where no injuries have occurred. There have been 14 use-offorce incidents involving a canine where injury has occurred.

Koch said that since 2004, RPS dogs have only been involved in four such accidental bites, counting the two recent ones.

However, eyebrows were raised when he initially seemed reluctant to call Kaysaywaysemat’s case an accident.

“On the second event, that’s an ongoing investigation. Is it accidental? He’s probably … he’s not a suspect, but he was in the area,” Koch said. Pressed on this, he clarified that he felt it, too, was accidental, but said: “I wouldn’t say he was attacked by the dog, he was contacted by the dog. The term ‘attacked’ is not a term that we use.”

For Kaysaywaysemat, who addressed the gathered press after Koch had spoken, the incident that left him “shaking all over” was definitely an attack. He said his daughter had since had a nightmare, and his children had felt the dog was going to come back.

“She (a canine officer) had a little bit of trouble commanding the dog to stop,” he said. “If it was highly trained, why was I attacked while I was sitting down smoking? Is that highly trained?”

Koch said the RPS had spoken to the first victim, but “hadn’t been able to get a hold of” Kaysaywaysemat to discuss matters. Kaysaywaysemat contested this. “I didn’t see (any) missed calls,” he said. “You guys (the media) contacted me pretty fine, right? I answered my phone when you guys called. There’s no other phone numbers on my phone.”

Asked what he felt about the lack of contact, Kaysaywaysemat gave a blunt assessment.

“They (RPS) take care of their own before they take care of somebody else,” he said. “They’re taking care of their family, I understand that. So was my family, trying to take care of me, to get the dog to release its jaws from my arm … “

After the interviews were given, Koch and Kaysaywaysemat headed to a private room for a discussion.