Calls are growing louder for three white Woodson Terrace officers to be fired and charged after they let a police K-9 dog attack a Black man for more than a minute while attempting to arrest him.
The incident occurred just after 7 a.m. Sept. 20 in the 4500 block of Woodson Road. An onlooker filmed the interaction and posted it online — the video on Facebook has since been played over 8,000 times. National outlets including The Washington Post, People, NBC, The Daily Beast and Vice have also written about the police interaction.
And while the FBI is investigating the incident, the agency declined to comment on it. St. Louis County’s prosecuting attorney, Wesley Bell, also declined to comment but his office did confirm the incident is under review.
Activists and protesters gathered in front of the Woodson Terrace Police Department on Sept. 24 demanding the three officers involved be fired and criminally charged.’
“It was reminiscent of the days where these K-9 dogs were released upon our people during the civil rights era as we sought justice throughout America.” —Zaki Baruti, president of the Universal African People’s Organization
“When they released their K-9 dogs upon this person, even though he was in custody, it was reminiscent of the days where these K-9 dogs were released upon our people during the civil rights era as we sought justice throughout America,” said Zaki Baruti, president of the Universal African People’s Organization.
On Facebook, the Reverend Darryl Gray denounced the officers’ actions, likening them to the atrocities committed during the civil rights protests.
“Police violence will not go unchallenged in this state,” Gray, a well-known activist, wrote. “The actions of the Woodson Terrace police were reminiscent of the racist tactics used by police during the civil rights protests.”
In alengthy Facebook post just hours after the attack, Woodson Terrace police released their narrative of what happened. They said officers were responding to a trespassing call in which the caller said a person was refusing to leave their business. That person eventually left the premises, police wrote, and officers found the man walking nearby.
Police wrote that the man appeared to be under the influence of drugs, threatened to kill the officers and resisted arrest — at one point walking into rush hour traffic on Woodson Road.
The post goes on to say the K-9 was used to gain control of the man several times before they were able to handcuff him. They wrote that the man initially refused medical treatment but then later was taken to a hospital.
The police said they found “suspected methamphetamine” on the man after he was arrested.
However, a now viralvideo of the incident taken by onlookers shows the man leaning over the hood of a car with three officers surrounding him. The first time the police dog is let loose on him, the man does not run but rather remains about in the same place as the dog bites his feet and he screams for help.
About a minute into the video, police get the man on the ground after the first time they sicced the K-9 on him. The dog continues to bite the man while he’s face down on the ground while two police officers hold his hands behind his back.
The man manages to get up off the ground and attempts to run and the K-9 officer lets go of the dog’s leash to let the animal chase after him. The man takes a few steps before the dog gets hold of his leg and the man is back on the ground again. The dog is then allowed to continue biting the man for another 30 seconds after falling to the ground.
Two of the officers again then appear to restrain the man, who is face down on the ground. The dog is put away in a vehicle and it appears the three officers have the man in custody. He can then be seen limping after officers help him to his feet and into the back of a police car.
While there’s no national database recording police dog bites and other attacks,The Marshall Project found bites in nearly every state, though numbers vary widely by city.
For instance, the report found that in Chicago police almost never deploy dogs, having recorded only one incident from 2017 to 2019. But in Indianapolis, police recorded more than 220 bites in the same time period — more than Washington D.C., Seattle, New York and Jacksonville, Florida, combined. Los Angeles reported more than 200 bites or dog-related injuries in that time.
Woodson Terrace is a small city just across Interstate 70 from St. Louis Lambert International Airport. Its police department is made up of 18 sworn offices and, as of 2019, the city has a population of just over 4,000 people.
