According to video obtained by KTVU, a woman’s scalp was torn off by a Brentwood K-9 after she allegedly shoplifted merchandise from a local mall, raising major questions about when and why K-9 units are deployed.
In the footage given by her lawyers, Talmika Bates, then 24, can be seen screaming and weeping in anguish. The skin on top of her skull was peeled away, revealing blood and bone beneath.
She claimed she was brought straight to jail when physicians at John Muir Hospital in Walnut Creek stitched her scalp back on. Her hair hasn’t grown back around her wounds, she says.
Adante Pointer and Patrick Buelna, her civil rights attorneys, filed a federal lawsuit late Tuesday night saying that the city and police dept caused her grave injuries due to police incompetence and policy violations.
In a Wednesday morning interview, Pointer expressed his outrage that police would send a “attack dog” to damage such a “low-level offender” and afterwards “sit casually back” and witness her struggle in pain.
On Wednesday, the Brentwood Police Department did not reply to a request for comment. The city attorney’s office and the city manager didn’t either.
Source: KTVU
