USA TODAY International Edition
Salt Lake police to stop using K- 9 dogs on suspects
Salt Lake City police will no longer use K- 9 dogs on suspects after disturbing video showed a police dog apparently biting a Black man kneeling with his hands up, the mayor said Wednesday on Twitter.
Salt Lake City Mayor Erin Mendenhall also said the police department has suspended the officer who commanded his dog to bite the man, whom police identified as Jeffery Ryans, 36.
The officer was identified by NBC News and the Salt Lake Tribune as Nickolas Pearce.
The video released Wednesday of the April 24 incident shows Ryans in his backyard as Pearce approaches with his dog.
“Get on the ground!” Pearce says in the video. “Get on the ground or you’re gonna get bit.”
Seconds later, he shouts “hit” – an apparent command instructing the dog to bite. The dog does so, repeatedly, as Ryans screams in pain. During this, the officer tells his K- 9, “Good boy.”
“I wasn’t running,” Ryans told the Salt Lake Tribune. “I wasn’t fighting. I was just cooperating.”
“Why are you guys doing this?” he says in the video.
Police were called to Ryans’ home by someone who heard him in an argument with his wife. Per CBS News, police claim his wife had a protective order but Ryans alleges that the order was lifted prior to the incident.
Ryans, who works as a train engineer, told the Salt Lake Tribune that he lost his job and was required to undergo multiple surgeries after the attack because of the nerve and tendon damage he suffered from the attack. He said he may also have to have his leg amputated.
According to an FAQ published on the Salt Lake City Police Department website, K- 9 dogs “only bite when absolutely necessary” to protect themselves, an officer or handler or against a felony suspect. Deputy Chief Jeff Kendrick told CBS News that going forward, K- 9s will only be used “for searches.”
The city’s district attorney and internal affairs investigators are looking into the incident, but police said that no complaint was filed after the attack, according to a statement issued Wednesday.
One of Ryans’ attorneys, Dan Garner, told USA TODAY that Ryans is “emotionally drained” from the incident and the fight to get acknowledgment from the city and police department.
Garner said his client wants reforms implemented, including the ability to file excessive force complaints without interacting with police and an end to qualified immunity.
“He still has hope that the city and the police department are going to do the right thing and take responsibility for what they did,” Garner told USA TODAY. “He’s not in the best place now.”
Salt Lake City police did not immediately respond to a request for comment from USA TODAY.
“I am disturbed by what I saw in that video, frustrated by how the situation was handled, and am committed to working to ensure neither happen again,” Mendenhall wrote in a tweet Wednesday.