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East Bay city will pay nearly $1M to woman attacked by police dog East Bay city will pay nearly $1M to woman attacked by police dog
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Bay Area//East Bay
East Bay city will pay nearly $1M to woman whose scalp was partially torn off by police dog
By Bob Egelko, Courts ReporterUpdated Nov 15, 2024 10:30 p.m.
Brentwood will pay $967,000 to settle a suit by a woman whose scalp was mauled by a police dog as she hid in the bushes.Ajax9/Getty Images / iStockphoto
Brentwood will pay $967,000 to settle a suit by a woman whose scalp was mauled by a police dog as she hid in the bushes after stealing products from a nearby beauty store in the East Bay community, the woman's lawyers announced Friday.
The 85-pound German shepherd tore at Talmika Bates' scalp for a full minute in 2020 and was not called off by her handler, officer Ryan Rezentes, until 40 seconds after she cried, "Please get your dog. I'm coming out," according to a court ruling in the case.
Hospital physicians reattached her scalp tissue with more than 200 stitches, but she still suffers from brain injuries and post-traumatic stress disorder, her lawyers said. Bates, who was 24 at the time of the incident, pleaded no contest to misdemeanor charges of grand theft and resisting arrest.
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"We saw a trained K-9 handler stand by while his dog mauled an unarmed young lady who was surrendering," Adante Pointer, an attorney for Bates, said in a statement. "Using a dog to exact street justice doesn't make the abuse of someone's civil rights any better."
Brentwood Police Chief Timothy Herbert said the city settled the case "to avoid further litigation and appeal costs." While the city no longer has any police dogs, Herbert said in a statement, "having a canine at the scene allowed the officers to apprehend a suspect who had fled the scene of a felony crime in a car that collided with a police vehicle and was actively trying to evade arrest."
Bates' lawyers said Rezentes is still on the police force.
According to a 2020 investigation by the nonprofit Marshall Project, police dogs in the U.S. bite thousands of people each year, mostly those suspected of crimes -- including minor offenses -- but sometimes innocent bystanders or the dogs' own handlers. "Police dog bites can be more like shark attacks than nips from a family pet," and there is often "little accountability or compensation," the report said.
Legislation that would have prohibited police in California from using dogs to bite suspects who were not threatening to kill or seriously injure anyone was rejected by state lawmakers last year after opposition from police groups. Law enforcement organizations supported bills this year that would have allowed the state's Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training to set dog-bite standards, but they also failed.
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Bates was one of three women who were seen stealing cosmetic products, reportedly worth thousands of dollars, from the Ulta Beauty store in February 2020. They tried to flee in a car but, after a collision, officers caught up with them, and Bates got out and hid behind a bush.
According to a judge's decision in the case, Rezentes was holding his trained German shepherd on a 6-foot leash when the dog seized Bates. The dog ignored the officer's command to stop and tore at her scalp while she cried out, and Rezentes waited for at least a minute before moving in and pulling the dog away.
Rezentes moved to dismiss Bates' lawsuit, arguing that he had not violated any clearly established rights -- relying on a Supreme Court doctrine known as "qualified immunity" that has protected many officers and their employers from lawsuits. U.S. District Judge Rita Lin disagreed in April and allowed the suit to continue, clearing the way for Friday's settlement.
Citing the Constitution's prohibition on unreasonable searches and seizures, Lin said, "A reasonable officer would have known in 2020 that it violates the Fourth Amendment to prolong a dog bite after the suspect had done everything in their power to communicate surrender, and to give a physically incapacitated suspect repeated commands to sit up or crawl rather than calling off the dog."
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Reach Bob Egelko: begelko@sfchronicle.com; X: @BobEgelko
Bob Egelko
Courts Reporter
Bob Egelko has been a reporter since June 1970. He spent 30 years with the Associated Press, covering news, politics and occasionally sports in Los Angeles, San Diego and Sacramento, and legal affairs in San Francisco from 1984 onward. He worked for the San Francisco Examiner for five months in 2000, then joined The Chronicle in November 2000.
His beat includes state and federal courts in California, the Supreme Court and the State Bar. He has a law degree from McGeorge School of Law in Sacramento and is a member of the bar. Coverage has included the passage of Proposition 13 in 1978, the appointment of Rose Bird to the state Supreme Court and her removal by the voters, the death penalty in California and the battles over gay rights and same-sex marriage.
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analysis of article text
propaganda analysis
| st:0.01 fo:0 s:0.01 d:0 c:0.03 db:0.193 a:0.52 m:0.16 t:1.11 (f) |
text of article used for CRITICAL ANALYSIS, under FAIR USE provisions of the Copyright Act of 1976, 17 U.S.C. § 107, et al.
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(video)
EXP - explicit prohibition propaganda (explicit_propaganda)
GRP - hated group (propaganda_theme1)
MAD - madness, violence, illness (propaganda_theme2)
SOC - survival of society (propaganda_theme3)
USE - gateway, use is abuse (propaganda_theme4)
KID - children (propaganda_theme5)
WAR - demonize, war, epidemic (propaganda_theme6)
TOT - total prohibition (propaganda_theme7)
DIS - dissent opposed (propaganda_theme8)
