Palo Alto releases footage of police dog attacking innocent man
The dog bit the man for nearly a minute before an officer ordered it to stop and pulled the animal away.
PALO ALTO — The city of Palo Alto on Tuesday released body-worn camera footage of a police dog attacking a man officers incorrectly assumed was a suspect in a crime.
On June 25, 2020, Palo Alto police officers went to Mountain View to help search for a “felony domestic violence/kidnapping suspect who Mountain View police believed had fled into a residential neighborhood,” the city of Palo Alto said in a statement.
Officers obtained consent from an occupant of a home to search their yard for the suspect, the statement said.
Footage of the encounter, captured from the perspective of Palo Alto police Officer Nicholas Enberg, shows officers walking into a side yard and the police dog quickly finding a man on the ground inside a shed. An officer then begins yelling commands at the dog, which bites the man repeatedly.
“Believing the person to be the hiding felony suspect, officers used the police canine to assist in detaining the person,” the statement said.
The officer repeatedly yells commands and the dog continues to attack the man as other officers grab the man by his legs and arms and order him to “give up” and “stop resisting,” the footage shows. The man yells in pain and tries to cover his face as the dog continues to bite him.
The dog bit the man for nearly a minute before an officer ordered it to stop and pulled the animal away.
“Further investigation revealed the person was not the suspect and in fact was not connected to the criminal incident that prompted the search,” the statement said.
The city said police supervisors and administrators “thoroughly investigated this incident shortly after it occurred,” though the city did not say whether the police department took any disciplinary action against the officers or the review found anything in the incident to be out of line with policy.
The man who was attacked, Joel Domingo Alejo, has filed a $20 million liability claim against Mountain View, claiming he was in the “backyard of his residence and sleeping at the time of the incident.”
The claim said the dog was instructed to “viciously attack and maul” Alejo, causing “extreme pain, bleeding, bruising,” as well as “emotional distress, fear, terror, anxiety, humiliation, loss of sense of security, dignity, and pride.” Alejo filed a similar $20 million claim against the city of Palo Alto, according to the Palo Alto Daily Post.
Enberg was one of two officers who fatally shot a mentally ill man police said had a knife and charged at officers on Christmas night in 2015.
Enberg was also one of several officers named in an excessive force lawsuit brought against the city by the mother of a teenager mauled by a police dog. The city settled the case for $250,000 in 2018, according to the Palo Alto Weekly.
The city’s contracted independent police auditor will review the June 25, 2020 case, the statement said.
The auditor “reviews police investigations for objectivity, thoroughness, and appropriateness, and can also make recommendations to the police chief such as further investigation needed and/or changes in department processes,” the statement said. A report with the auditor’s findings will also be published.