A lady who was mauled by a Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Division canine is suing the county and asking the division to finish its “discover and chunk” canine program.
In a lawsuit filed this week in Los Angeles County Superior Court docket, attorneys for Rosa Ramirez say the 44-year-old was standing simply exterior her entrance door speaking to a deputy final yr when an off-leash patrol canine swooped in and clamped down on her hand, completely injuring her.
“There must be no extra victims like Rosa Ramirez,” lawyer Colleen Flynn informed The Occasions on Friday. “The one course to take this canine assault program is to finish it instantly — these are ‘discover and chunk’ canines so that they don’t simply discover individuals, they chunk them.”
The Sheriff’s Division mentioned in a press release that it had not formally acquired the lawsuit, however acknowledged the incident occurred and mentioned it solely makes use of canines beneath “strict pointers” in high-risk eventualities.
“The division is devoted to making sure that handler management canines are utilized in adherence to our coverage and rigorous coaching requirements,” the assertion mentioned.
In recent times, police canine packages have come beneath growing scrutiny. In keeping with an investigation by the Marshall Undertaking, a nonprofit information website, there’s little oversight of how the animals are used, although information present canine bites ship extra individuals to the hospital than another sort of drive utilized by police.
Final yr, the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California launched a report calling for laws to restrict the usage of police canines, noting that they’re typically used on individuals experiencing behavioral well being crises and typically maul bystanders.
Simply after 9 p.m. on Feb. 22, 2023, sheriff’s deputies trying to find a fleeing suspect in South Los Angeles got here to Ramirez’s door, the lawsuit says. She opened up and took a step exterior, when a 55- to 65-pound patrol canine charged her from the left. The canine bit Ramirez, gouging out a big chunk of flesh from her left hand, in keeping with the lawsuit.
She was rushed to the hospital, and finally her accidents required a number of surgical procedures and a pores and skin graft. Greater than a yr later, her attorneys say, Ramirez nonetheless can’t grip or write together with her left hand and struggles with numbness and restricted motion.
“Her hand is now completely disfigured and functionally disabled,” Flynn mentioned at a Friday information convention exterior the downtown Corridor of Justice, the place she was flanked by massive posters exhibiting graphic photos of Ramirez’s accidents.
In 1980, in keeping with the lawsuit, the Sheriff’s Division launched a program counting on canines to seek out legal suspects. On the time, the go well with alleges, division leaders knew the canines would chunk the suspects they positioned. However the go well with says that “impermissibly and unreasonably delegated to the canines the discretion whether or not to chunk suspects,” successfully shifting selections about how a lot drive to make use of from people to animals.
When deputies use different weapons — equivalent to a baton, pepper spray or a gun — they are often held accountable for the end result.
“They evade accountability by blaming the canine, and because the canine doesn’t have human judgment they only deal with it as an accident,” Flynn informed The Occasions. “However these assaults are foreseeable. It’s not an accident in case you’ve been doing it for near 50 years.”
At one level, the go well with factors to a 1992 report that warned leaders of “critical issues” within the canine program and confirmed a number of cases through which canines had been allowed to maintain biting individuals far longer than appeared mandatory.
“In all this time they’ve by no means realized to regulate these canines as a result of they will’t,” Flynn mentioned. “They’ll’t management the place a canine bites somebody, how arduous a canine bites somebody or how a lot flesh is torn away they usually can’t even management who’s bitten.”
In keeping with her attorneys, the assault on Ramirez derailed the deputies from the fleeing suspect, who was not discovered.
The lawsuit doesn’t record a greenback quantity Ramirez is looking for in damages.
