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The South Florida Sun Sentinel used Florida’s public records law over the past 10 months to compel Broward County’s six largest police departments to produce racial statistics on who their dogs bite.
Pavon Davis cowered behind a fallen pine tree, his heart racing. The sharp teeth of a trained police dog drew nearer. Davis, 18, and his friends had jumped a fence and entered Flanagan High School to play manhunt. Now a helicopter hovered overhead, guiding Pembroke Pines Police Officer Mark Farah and K-9 Rory to Davis’ hiding spot. The dog bit without warning, body camera footage shows. As the ...
The South Florida Sun Sentinel examined K-9 bites over a 17-month period at Broward’s largest police agencies and found 84 percent of people bitten were Black. The dogs are indispensable for finding and capturing dangerous criminals. Yet more than half of the people bitten were accused of nonviolent property crimes. The typical K-9 case: a young Black man driving a stolen car or accused of stealing from an unlocked one.