Brentwood: Officer Whose Police Dog Scalped Shoplifting Suspect Cannot Claim Qualified Immunity In Resulting Federal Civil Rights Lawsuit, District Court Rules

Bay City News

A federal district court ruled on Monday that the Brentwood Brentwood Police K-9 Officer Ryan Rezentes does not have qualified immunity in the federal civil rights lawsuit resulting from a 2020 incident where his police dog scalped a shoplifting subject, according to a Friday press release.

"This a grotesque case of police abuse," said civil rights attorney Adante Pointer. "Rezentes stood by and let his dog maul an unarmed young lady without giving any warning or providing her a chance to surrender. Ms. Bates is lucky she survived such a dangerous and traumatic incident. Police are now on notice that using their canines to exact street justice is unlawful."

The victim, Talmika Bates, needed more than 200 stitches in her head, surgical tissue rearrangement and laceration repair, according to the press release. She has since been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, mild diffuse traumatic brain injury and mild post-traumatic brain syndrome.

"A reasonable officer would have known in 2020 that it violates the Fourth Amendment to prolong a dog bite after the suspect had done everything in their power to communicate surrender, and to give a physically incapacitated suspect repeated commands to sit up or crawl rather than calling off the dog," U.S. District Court Judge Rita F. Lin wrote in her Monday decision.

The incident began when officers responded to a call about three people shoplifting at an Ulta Beauty store. Officers chased the suspects, who then allegedly rammed a police car with their vehicle. Bates, who was not driving, hid in the bushes nearby, where the dog found her and bit her head.

Bodycam footage shows Bates screaming to the officer that she would surrender but Rezentes, who was still holding the dog's leash, tells Bates to come out of the bushes. The dog then dragged her by the head as she called out to her mother, who was not present. Footage shows that the dog tore Bates' scalp from her skull, that large chunks of flesh were missing and that Bates was bleeding profusely.

"A reasonable jury could find that Rezentes realized by thirty seconds into the bite, at the latest, that the dog was biting Bates's head, and that a reasonable officer would have acted promptly to call the dog off, rather than wait another 25 to 30 seconds," Lin said.

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