BRENTWOOD, Calif. - A woman had her scalp torn off by a Brentwood police dog after she shoplifted some perfume and makeup from a nearby mall, video obtained by KTVU shows, raising serious questions about when and why K-9 units are deployed.
Talmika Bates, then 24, is seen in the video provided by her lawyers screaming and wailing in pain. The skin on top of her head was ripped off exposing blood and bone. "Help me!
The dog is biting me," she screams. "My whole brain is bleeding!" The police officer in the video responds: "We're going to help you…but you shouldn't run from the police." Her civil rights attorneys, Adante Pointer and Patrick Buelna, filed a federal lawsuit late Tuesday night alleging that the city and police department caused her severe injury because of police negligence and violation of policy.
They also allege that this police tactic is reminiscent of the darkest times in U.S. history. "This unbridled use of an apparent blood thirsty dog to track, hunt and then attack an unarmed fleeing woman as she lay in a set of bushes harkens back to the days of slavery and slave catchers," Pointer wrote in the suit.