Human rights group sues for police K-9 bite records. ‘People of Fresno deserve to know’
The city of Fresno has refused to release important details listed in Fresno police reports related to K-9 officer bites, the American Civil Liberties Union said in a new lawsuit.
The ACLU submitted a public records request in March 2023 and, after a year-long fight over the K-9 bite reports, filed a lawsuit in Fresno County Superior Court.
The nonprofit published a report in January called “Weaponizing Dogs – The Brutal and Outdated Practice of Police Attack Dogs,” which was written after the ACLU got records from 37 police departments around the state, including Fresno.
The request sought reports for police K-9 bites whether intentional or unintentional and other records related to the bites and any investigations that followed.
But Fresno Police Department’s reports were handed over heavily redacted, making many of them unreadable and a violation of the Public Records Act, according to Shayla Harris, an attorney with ACLU NorCal.
“We know the reports they did produce were improperly redacted,” she said. “As a matter of state law and policy, those records belong in the public view. The people of Fresno deserve to know how and why the Fresno police use their K-9s.”
Fresno also has not answered the ACLU’s questions about what was redacted and why, Harris said.
The city pointed to attorney-client privilege in some cases or privacy and investigation exemptions, the lawsuit says. Harris said transparency laws say the city — if it has to redact any information — must make a reasonable effort to redact only the sensitive parts and not large swaths.
“There are sections titled ‘Narrative,’ and then there are big gray boxes blocking everything,” she said.
Fresno City Attorney Andrew Janz expressed his confidence in the redacted material, saying a judge recently ruled in Fresno’s favor in a case involving the use of Tasers and redacted records.
“The city of Fresno will continue to abide by all laws regarding the production of public documents, including those related to our use of K-9s,” he said. “Moreover, the city of Fresno will continue to defend the use of less-than-lethal tools at our disposal.”
Fresno K-9 bite records and police use-of-force
Across the state, police use-of-force with K-9 dogs are used most commonly on people of color, people experiencing a mental health episode and often people who pose no danger to the police, the ACLU report found.
For example, Bakersfield released documents that showed that of the people bit by police dogs, Black and Latino people made up 89% despite being just 59% of the population.
Officers also do not have control of the dogs, who bite innocent bystanders or do not release a bite when commanded, according to the report.
The report cites a few incidents in Fresno that made news, including the October 2021 incident when a dog named Odin attacked an officer, who was hospitalized. While being transported months later to be euthanized on Jan. 4, 2022, Odin bit another officer before that officer shot the dog to death.
In another Fresno incident, a K-9 bit an innocent bystander watching police activity in 2015.
