Lately, when you think about out-of-control police departments, Chicago and Cleveland are the first to come to mind. But now it looks like there’s a new entry to that sordid list–the police department in North Port, Florida; a suburb of Sarasota. Specifically, the K-9 unit, which is under fire for having its dogs launch unprovoked attacks on people who are having suicidal thoughts.
On the afternoon of July 26, 2012; Jared Lemay’s mother called North Port police to report that her son was suicidal. His sister had found a noose in the garage. When police learned that Lemay was wanted for probation violation, they dispatched K-9 handler Keith Bush to his house. Lemay told The (Sarasota) Herald Tribune that Bush and another K-9 officer, Michael Dietz, entered the garage, turned on the lights, found Lemay hidden in a trash can, and shoved the trash can over.
Lemay then says that without any warning, Dietz unleashed his dog, Cammo, on him. Cammo bit Lemay on the face and back; Lemay’s face was so swollen that “I couldn’t even eat for a week.” Bush and Dietz claim that the lights weren’t working, and that Lemay didn’t obey their commands to show his hands–leaving Dietz with no option but to send in his dog. But that account seems to be belied by a car-to-car text message exchange between Bush and Dietz.
On the way to Lemay’s house, Bush texted Dietz:
“COME GET UR BITE”
Minutes later, Bush fired off another message to Dietz:
“I’M GONNA TAKE UR BITE IF U DONT HURRY UP”
When Charles Mesloh of Northern Michigan University, an expert on use of force by K-9 units, read this exchange, he found it so “horrifying” that he believed the federal Department of Justice should put the North Port police under the microscope. He told the Herald Tribune that on paper, it was one of the worst civil rights violations he’d ever seen. Andrea Lynn Mogensen of the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida agrees, saying that it was clearly a “planned use of force.” Lemay is beginning the process of filing a suit against the city of North Port.
Incredibly, the most discipline that anyone received for this incident came just this year, when the Herald Tribune began probing the K-9 unit. When the exchange between Bush and Dietz turned up, Dietz was merely given a “memorandum of counseling”–the most lenient discipline possible in the department–for “unprofessional” conduct. Apparently no one wondered why Bush would even think about sending such a message while on the way to a call about a suicidal person.
The Herald Tribune found at least one other case where a person with suicidal thoughts was mauled by a K-9. “Mark” says that when he tried to commit suicide in July 2014, Bush and his dog, Tomy, responded to the call. Bush found Mark in the woods behind his mother’s house, covered in blood. Bush claimed that Mark refused to raise his hands. However, Mark says that he couldn’t raise his hands because he was too weak from blood loss. Despite this, Tomy bit him in the stomach. The wound became infected, and Mark can’t lift more than 10 pounds without experiencing severe pain.
Police department policy allows police dogs wide latitude to apprehend anyone “reasonably believed to have committed a crime.” No exceptions are made for suicidal people or anyone else threatening to harm themselves. In contrast, the International Association of Chiefs of Police’s model policy for police dogs specifically states that dogs should not be used to catch “the mentally disturbed” unless another crime is involved.
But you shouldn’t need to be told that sending a dog to attack a suicidal person is flat-out wrong. Either one of those incidents should have resulted in Bush at the very least being fired. To my mind, this department’s brass, from police chief Kevin Vespia on down, need to be on the unemployment line as well. When a police chief appears to condone his K-9 unit attacking suicidal people and others with mental problems in this manner, it’s time for that police chief to go.
