Officer reprimanded for releasing K-9, which bit 10-year-old boy

Officer reprimanded for releasing K-9, which bit 10-year-old boy

www. gainesville.com

The Gainesville police officer who let his dog loose on a 10-year-old boy resulting in bites to the child's leg has been reprimanded by the department.

Cpl. Timothy Durst made a judgment error in freeing his dog by failing to verify that a reported crime occurred and failing to verify that the description of the boy matched the reported suspects, according to an internal affairs report released Thursday.

(visit the link for the full news article)

This is another one of those stories where all I can do is just scratch my head in bewilderment, on multiple levels.

Releasing an attack dog on an innocent 10 year old kid?

Seriously?

And all he recieved was a reprimand??? Just imagine if any CIVILIAN did something as barbaric as this, what THEIR punishment would be.

What I would like to know is where the heck this officer recieved his TRAINING. Dude broke more than one procedure, and seriously has no business handling a canine unit if he can't tell the difference between a 10 year old kid riding his bike and a burglary suspect.

Well little Bryce learned his lesson! Never ride your bike to the mailbox, lest you be confused with burglars and ordered to stop, and have the hounds of hell unleashed upon you!

Poor kid is probably going to have nightmares for the rest of his life.

www. gainesville.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

These cops are going to have aweful red wrists if we don't start behaving!

Seriously though, a dog for a 10 year old kid? Some of those dogs are bigger than 10 year olds!

What's next, SWAT teams against a "small person"?

(I know, I know, wait for the "whole story". This 10 year old could have bean a real scary person!)

EDIT--
Sigh

Durst, with his dog Grady, saw a youngster later identified as Bryce on a bicycle in the area. Police say Durst yelled for the boy to stop. Durst then released his dog, which bit Bryce.

From the OPost source.

Reply to post by DimensionalDetective

Poor kid is probably going to have nightmares for the rest of his life.

Definitely. But the least of the problems he will have.

A hatred of cops, mistrust of authority, a view of dogs as weapons.

In 10 years time that kid is going to get into dog fighting and have numerous run-ins with the law. Likely violent.

Will the cop be "reprimanded" for that? In that one bad decision the cop may have very well set the course for a delinquent life which will cost society millions in tangible loss and an incalculable amount in intangible loss.

I hope the alleged 'crime' was worth risking all of that for.


Posted Via ATS Mobile: m.abovetopsecret.com

Im sorry but there ought to be a straight guideline that you cannot use a dog against a person of under sixteen years of age except to track them. Messing with people , even in error, can cause devastating and costly problems later in not just the life of the victim, but also for anyone they effect negatively later in thier lives. Its basicaly creating monsters, and then complaining when people are monsterous!
This officer shouldnt even be allowed to watch the paperclips if he cannot tell the difference between a ten year old, and a threat or flight risk.
Here in the UK we have trained K-9 units, but they are very rarely required to perform a take down on a suspect, because usualy they are used to hunt down the suspect, whereby officers take the offender upon his location. Only very rarely is it required for the dog to make the arrest so to speak.

So the brain-fart of the police-man gets him a reprimand, and what do you reckon will happen to the dog?

In my opinion, the poor thing will probably get put to sleep, for doing what it was trained to and told do.

If a dog bites a police officer, whether on purpose (set by the owner) or by accident, the dog gets shot. The owner will have a tough legal battle for either attacking the officer or contributing to it.

What happens in this case? Nothing. There should be no reason the law should be above the law.

Some legislature needs to be crafted about careless and irresponsible use of authority.

And there should definitely be a lawsuit against the police department, awards of which should be taken out of the police budget.

reply to post by DimensionalDetective


Wow... Officer Safety is Officer Safety, but this is excessive. I am glad to see they adopted the Felony rule for
their K-9 unit. Something that should have been done sometime ago when it first became problematic.

For what its worth, in todays day and age is is difficult to adequately gauge a persons age. Not saying thats an excuse, but it should factor in to some of these incidents.

In this case though the guy broke departmental policy, and was held accountible for it. In addition it resulted in policy change to prevent it from occuring again (only in a perfect world though). It could be worse, it could have been ignored and swept under the rug.

A positive step in my opinion. Now we shall see if a civil suit comes, which I think based on the article would be valid since the officer broke department policy. The Immunity shield Law Enforcement gets is generally null when policy is violated and an adverse outcome occurs.

reply to post by Xcathdra


For what its worth, from the article in the OP the chief says....

"I think that when you look at the policies in place, if I had to freeze-frame it to that date and time, the reprimand was all I could do," Jones said.

I reads like the chief might have wanted to do more. But felt possibly hindered by the regulations in place. More than once a Chief or Sheriff has fired a "bad cop" only for them to the get their job back later due to some regulation / procedure. The chief might have been trying to avoid that from happening here.

Also - yes - it appears a lawsuit is on the way..

Gainesville attorney Robert Rush has filed a notice of intent to sue on behalf of the family. He said Thursday he hopes to meet with city to try to resolve the matter

Maybe the K9 officer thought the kid was an evil-midget-clown from outer space, like he saw in the academy training films.

That would justify springing the attack dog on the unsuspecting kid!

Sorry, I'm a little cop cynical today.

Edit: well at least he wasn't TASED bro'. And....cops shoot peoples pets all the time just because they are barking a lot......