Newspaper seeks police dog-bite records p. 17

By: Editorial Staff

DOG BITES MAN isn't news, right?
Not necessarily, according to the Spokesman-Review in Spokane, Wash.
The newspaper has gone to court to force the local police department to release its K-9 "use of force" records in the wake of reports that its dogs might be doing their job too enthusiastically.
A Seattle woman is suing the city, claiming she was "viciously attacked" by a police dog, which bit her repeatedly without provocation.
In another case reported by the Spokesman-Review, a police canine bit a business owner responding to a burglar alarm at his place in the company of officers. Also, a sleeping transient was bitten by a police dog during a search of a burglar ? and two police officers were attacked by their dogs.
One Spokesman-Review story said more than 80 criminal suspects have been bitten by police dogs since the K-9 unit was formed in 1988. Injuries ranged from nips that did not break the skin to bites that required stitches.
The paper said Spokane police dogs bit someone 23% of the times that they were used in arrests, compared with a 16% rate for the Seattle Police Department's K-9 unit and 15% for the Spokane County Sheriff's Department.
The newspaper reported that other police dog handlers in the state of Washington expressed concern that the Spokane police dogs sre vicious and out of control.
Spokesman-Review managing editor Chris Peck said that when the paper asked for K-9 records, it received documents with so many blackouts of names that the records were virtually useless.
"They deleted the names of the officers, the victims and even the names of the dogs," Peck said. "It reached the point of absurdity. Who did they think was going to read the dogs' names ? their families?"
Duane Swinton, an attorney for the Cowles Publishing Co., the Spokes-man-Review's parent firm, has argued that the K-9 files are public records and should be released.
Assistant City Attorney Rocco Treppedi replied that making the records public would hamper effective law enforcement.
Superior Court Judge Larry Kristianson agreed that the records were public and ordered the police to release unedited reports.
The state Court of Appeals upheld Kristianson, ruling that the requested files are administrative in nature and should not be deemed "investigative documents."
The city has appealed to the Washington Supreme Court.
Meanwhile, the Spokesman-Review's plan for a full story on the situation is on hold.