On July 24, 1991, private attorneys and attorneys for the ACLU and NAACP filed a state-court class action lawsuit pursuant to 42 U.S.C. §§ 1983 and 1985, alleging that the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) engaged in unlawful use of police attack dogs to apprehend suspects. On August 17, 1993, after two years of discovery, plaintiffs filed their third amended complaint, which included as attachments sixteen separate charts evidencing statistical information regarding LAPD's K-9 unit. Plaintiffs alleged, inter alia, that the LAPD engaged in a custom, pattern and/or practice whereby hundreds of citizens, particularly minorities, were subjected to vicious dog attacks and bodily injury, when officers deployed police dogs in circumstances that were not constitutionally justified. Plaintiffs alleged that in the three years preceding the filing of the third amended complaint, some 900 suspects were believed to have been bitten by LAPD police dogs. Plaintiffs cited a 90% injury rate to suspects subjected to the police dogs. Plaintiffs further alleged that the LAPD disproportionately deployed attack dogs in minority areas, resulting in over 90% of the dog bites being inflicted on African-American or Latino citizens. Plaintiffs sought monetary damages and injunctive relief to bar such practices.

On March 27, 1995 the parties settled the case along with some other cases pending against LAPD relating to use of canines. The settlement included a monetary payment to 54 individually named plaintiffs and injunctive relief in the form of agreed revisions to the LAPD K-9 policies. The revisions included the requirement that LAPD collect and publish data in the form of quarterly and annual reports, regarding the K-9 unit, including the number of searches by division, the find ratio, the number of bites, and the number of hospitalizations relating to bites. While the settlement was a private agreement, it contained a court enforcement provision.

Dan Dalton - 12/28/2006


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