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Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Mom says police dog's attack on son, 13, in South St. Paul was unprovoked

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posted by Bob at Wednesday, March 18, 2009

12 Comments:

Blogger Bob said...

By Mara H. Gottfried
mgottfried@pioneerpress.com
Posted: 03/18/2009 12:01:00 AM CDT


Mitch Fitzgerald, 13, was standing near a South St. Paul water tower Sunday night when a police dog suddenly ran up to him, knocked him down and started biting him, his mother said.

The boy recognized the German shepherd from around the neighborhood and from Animal Planet's "K9 Cops" as a St. Paul police dog, said Mitch's mother, Terri Fitzgerald. Mitch tried to remember the dog's name to tell him to stop.

"He was screaming for the cop," Fitzgerald said as she sat with her son at a St. Paul hospital Monday, where she said Mitch received 16 stitches. He was released Tuesday. "The dog didn't stop until the officer called him."

Fitzgerald said the off-duty St. Paul officer gave her a business card identifying himself as Isaac Rinehart.

Mitch didn't provoke the dog or see him until he was about to attack, Fitzgerald said. South St. Paul and St. Paul police are investigating; neither department provided information about what the boy was doing before he was bitten.

This isn't the first time the dog, Sarik, is alleged to have bitten someone by mistake. The dog slipped from Rinehart's grasp when he was responding to a fight call in downtown St. Paul in 2007 and bit a man who wasn't involved, according to a police incident report.

Hearing about the previous case made Fitzgerald even angrier about what happened to her son.

"If you're a K-9 cop, you have to have complete control of the dog," she said. "In a residential area, it shouldn't be off a leash.
I can't have my dog off the leash."

Police dogs are never off duty, and it's the discretion of its handler when the dog should be leashed, said Peter Panos, St. Paul police spokesman.

"It's never a pet. It's always a working dog," he said. "These dogs are very well-trained. Do they make mistakes? Yes. We won't know what happened in this case until the investigation is done."

Panos said neither he nor Rinehart would be commenting on specifics of the case while it's under investigation.

On Sunday night, Mitch had been at a friend's house in his South St. Paul neighborhood and was walking home when he saw a female friend waiting by the water tower near 18th Avenue South and Fourth Street South, Fitzgerald said. The friend was waiting for her father to pick her up, and Mitch stayed to keep her company.

Fitzgerald said she and Mitch have seen Rinehart and Sarik in the area before — she believes Rinehart lives nearby and allows Sarik to run by the water tower after their shift is over.

Sarik bit Mitch on his arm and face and scratched his leg, Fitzgerald said. The teen needed three stitches on his lip and 13 on his arm, she said.

Mitch called his mother from a cell phone, saying he had been bitten by a police dog. Fitzgerald went outside and heard her son screaming.

Fitzgerald said she's angry that Rinehart, who was in uniform, told her son to walk home by himself and that he would meet him at his house. Rinehart told her he was trying to reach his commander, Fitzgerald said.

When he pulled up in his squad car, Rinehart said, "I'm so sorry this happened," according to Fitzgerald.

She asked him what happened, and Rinehart said Mitch must have spooked his dog. Rinehart also asked what he and his friend had been doing by the water tower. Fitzgerald told Rinehart her son and his friend weren't doing anything wrong.

Fitzgerald said Rinehart told her that, before he let Sarik out of his car unleashed, he had turned his flashlight on and yelled, but nobody made his or her presence known. Mitch told his mother he didn't see a light or hear the officer's voice.

Fitzgerald said she asked Rinehart to call an ambulance.

"He said it would cost too much money," Fitzgerald said. "I said, 'It doesn't really matter and I have insurance.' He said it was a little puncture wound and I should go wash it off with cold water."

Fitzgerald said she did as Rinehart suggested, but she could tell the wounds were more serious than a puncture wound. She said she asked Rinehart again — this time in the presence of a South St. Paul police officer — about calling an ambulance, and he repeated that it would be expensive.

At that point, Fitzgerald got Mitch into her car and drove him to the emergency room at Children's Hospitals and Clinics of Minnesota, she said.

South St. Paul police were called at 9:10 p.m. Sunday to a report of a domestic assault in the 400 block of 18th Avenue South. (Fitzgerald said she was told that a neighbor, who didn't know what was happening but heard screaming, reported a domestic incident.)

Responding officers stopped a car in the area and were told someone had been bitten by a police dog. The officers were directed to the 1800 block of Fifth Avenue South, said South St. Paul Police Chief Daniel Vujovich.

A St. Paul police officer told South St. Paul officers that the victim's parent was taking him to the hospital, Vujovich said. A South St. Paul officer spoke with the boy's mother briefly and told her they would talk to her and the boy more after he received medical attention, he said.

Vujovich said he didn't see anything in a police report about the boy's mother asking for an ambulance.

South St. Paul police are waiting for St. Paul police to submit an incident report with the officer's account, Vujovich said.

Rinehart's supervisor in the K-9 unit will determine whether an internal affairs investigation should be completed, Panos said. The officer and dog remain on duty, he said.

Fitzgerald said she has an attorney and is consulting him about her options.

At the time of the Dec. 20, 2007, bite in St. Paul involving Sarik, a police spokesman said there would be an internal review. There is no record of discipline associated with the bite in Rinehart's personnel file. Panos, who wasn't the department's spokesman in 2007, said he couldn't find a record of an internal affairs investigation.

Mara H. Gottfried can be reached at 651-228-5262.

8:19 AM  
Blogger Bob said...

Hi All,

To me this isn't really a big deal. I was a paper boy when I was a kid. I got bite by dogs on occasion. Never went to the hospital or cried to mommy. I started carrying a BB gun on my paper route. I taught them dogs a lesson they never forgot. After that the attack dogs would see me coming and run tuck tail and hide .:-)

Well as far as the officer telling this woman an ambulance is expensive, I think he was attempting to give her some good advice. This deal wasn't that serious that an ambulance needed to be wasted on it.My gal Cinnamon has a $1500 ambulance bill. If the Saint Paul Fire department makes 5 ambulance runs a day they had a $7500 day. That's over $2,637,500 a year! Wouldn't one of you entrepreneurs out there like this gig? I thought this service was paid for by tax dollars. Silly me.

I saved myself thousands of dollars in medical bills a couple weeks ago. Smashed and tore off a chunk of the end of my little finger working on my dragster. The bone was exposed.And NO I didn't call an ambulance.I washed it out and pulled the meat over the bone and used band aides to hold it all in place. Healed up real nice. Broke my collar bone when I was a kid. My dearly departed mother a LPN at the time, looked at my injury and said "you broke your collar bone what were you doing? I told her my friends and I were tobogganing at Linwood Park and we hit a tree. My shoulder hitting the tree first then impacted by the weight of my friends behind me. She said, well maybe next time you will be more careful! You will be alright, go play. That was the end of that except for about 2 weeks of excruciating pain where I couldn't turn my head in any direction. Folks are getting soft. We could save millions on health care if folks would toughen up some.

Next we will hear about this lady filing a lawsuit hoping to cash in on some money for herself and little Johnny's college fund.

9:01 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

'Little Johnny' was bitten by a police dog and needed 16 stitches.

If it was the cop that hit 'Little Johnny' and gave him 16 stitches, would you feel different?

Eric

11:35 AM  
Blogger Bob said...

Eric, we all know a dog doesn't have the capacity to reason like a person. And I see no logical reason this cop would intentional set out to harm this kid with his police dog.

I'm sure this cop let the dog run off his leech for some exercise thinking nobody was around. The dog being police trained probably seen the kid and thought it was time to go to work.

My kid was falsely arrested for graffiti and spent a night in jail. I think this type of damage exceeds a dog bite and we didn't sue. AN apology from the police was sufficient for us. Maybe, an apology from the officer would help this situation..

2:12 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

If he was holstering his weapon and it discharged and hit someone and caused 16 stitches, is it his fault then?

' He said it was a little puncture wound and I should go wash it off with cold water."

Since we now know that it was more than one puncture and took 16 stitches, it appears that the cop was trying to cover his tail.

He was careless with the dog and someone was injured. These dogs are not pets. They are as dangerous as a weapon and he was careless with the dog.

What happens to private citizens pets that bite others to this degree? This dog is back at work.

A more careful handler would have patrolled the area on foot first and been sure to be where he had a visual of everything BEFORE unleashing the dog.

Why would the woman not sue, at the very least for hospital bills?

Its funny hearing you complain about a lawsuit. The whole existence of this blog is due to a frivolous lawsuit.



Eric

2:37 PM  
Blogger Bob said...

Eric, I previously said;
Maybe, an apology from the officer would help this situation..

Show me the statement here where I said he wasn't liable.

This cop isn't doing anything but covering his ass. You should understand this Eric. The city does it all the time. Just look at the fair housing lawsuits and the incident with Geri Boyd the code enforcement officer saying city DSI is stealing money from home owners. Must be OK for folks like Kessler, Chuck and you to defend this kind of thing, but, I can't even give an impartial defense for a police officer and you make something of it. We can't forget all those eggheads at SPIF defending the city in demolishing 14 E. Jessamine. What a crock of lies us property rights advocates exposed over that dirty scandal.

I am starting to think I could call the color red, red, and you would say it was orange and stick to it.

3:13 PM  
Blogger Bob said...

P.S. the whole existence of this blog is home owners getting screwed over buy this city using a predatory code enforcement.

3:14 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Now you're just making stuff up Bob.

go back and find where I said it was OK. When you can't, knock it off. I don't believe in RICO- period. Everything else is case by case. So far, you've done a horseshit job of proving your case.

I'll be looking forward to you posting my words that's it OK to steal money.


Eric

4:32 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

According to Peter Panos :

' Police dogs are never off duty, and its the discretion of it's handler, when the dog should be leashed ' .

Bullshit, I haven't seem the police policy on this, but the city ordinance requires citizens to keep their dogs leashed at all times.

It seems common sence that the policy probably says that when an officer and the dog are in pursuit or conducting an investigation that requires the dogs attention, then the officer has discretion to
unleash him.

Mindful of course that innocent bystanders are ALWAYS in the area if a pursuit or investigation is in a public place.

Rinehart claiming the boy spooked his dog is bullshit to.

No excuse for not having control of the dog and as far as a lawsuit is concerned, Rinehart admitting he believed the dog was spooked, means the cop was not exercising discretion, and official immunity will not apply.

Panos statement that the officer has discretion when to unleash the dog is correct.

Whats wrong with this is that no discretion was involved if Rinehart admits the dog got loose.

I would sue, and am willing to bet there will be a settlement.

See Lena Hyatt vs. Anoka Police Department. A03-1707 Minnesota Court of Appeals.



Jeff Matiatos

5:15 PM  
Blogger Bob said...

Eric said;
So far, you've done a horseshit job of proving your case

My response;
I haven't had to prove a thing. I merely post witness testimony. The testimony has certainly convinced me and hundreds if not thousands of other folks of the truth concerning predatory housing code enforcement in Saint Paul.

6:08 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Jeff you are on the right path in this one.

I don't understand why Bob doesn't think this is a big deal.


Eric

12:12 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"Rinehart claiming the boy spooked his dog is bullshit to."

If these dogs are "spooked" this easy, should they even be among us?

Who's next?

Perhaps they could walk them a bit down around city hall or over by Lee Helgens house.

2:54 AM  

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