A police dog handler's decision to use his dog to apprehend a 12-year-old boy was justified, the police watchdog has found.
The incident unfolded at around 1.30am on January 4 this year when police responded to an alarm going off at a Te Awamutu pharmacy, the Independent Police Conduct Authority (IPCA) noted.
Upon arrival, the officers saw a vehicle near the car park entry, which quickly drove away.
"It didn't have its lights on, and it quickly, like, darted out towards the entry to the car park where we had come from," one of the officers told the IPCA.
Believing the vehicle might be connected to the reported burglary at the pharmacy, the officers turned on their car's lights and sirens — signalling for the vehicle to stop.
Instead, it drove onto the wrong side of the road and sped away from the officers.
The driver of the vehicle told the IPCA he "took off" because he did not want his parents to find out he had taken their car for a joy ride.
The officers did not to pursue the vehicle.
Later, police found the same vehicle with sparks flying from one of its rear wheels.
The officers signalled for it to stop. The vehicle did pull over but as one of the officers was approaching it, the vehicle's occupants "shouted something and boosted off again".
The vehicle was later spotted struggling to get up a hill on a nearby rural road.
"All of a sudden, I just saw this big red glow, and I remember seeing two figures jump out of the vehicle… they kind of took off into the distance," the officer said.
The underside of the car was on fire, with officers calling for the help of firefighters.
A dog team from Hamilton told the officers they were heading their way. They radioed back, informing the dog handlers there were two or three occupants running away.
After arriving at the scene, one of the dog handlers used his animal to track the occupants across a rural property.
The dog and officer eventually reached a tennis court, where they spotted two people running away.
He called out, asking the two to stop, but they kept running — so he released his dog.
One of the occupants running away said he thought he'd heard a "house dog" barking, not a police dog. He also claimed the officer didn't give any warning before releasing the dog.
He said the other person running away, a 12-year-old boy, froze, and the dog bit him.
"We were in a corner. We were completely fenced in; it was around the whole place."
"We were hiding behind a fence, then ran, I think it was like a tennis court or something like that, then we tried to climb the fence, but I couldn't, then I slipped," the boy who got bitten said.
The officer said that because of how dark it was he "had no knowledge that the offenders were running towards a fence, or in fact anything beyond them".
He said it wasn't until after the arrest he noticed the tennis court was fenced off.
The officer sprinted towards the two and attempted to handcuff the 12-year-old but struggled "due to him quickly and violently moving around on the ground".
The boy claimed the dog bit him for five minutes but the IPCA believed he said this because his "sense of time would have been affected".
A constable who was with the officer went on to handcuff the boy, saying the dog was on him for the time it took to carry out the arrest.
While this was happening, the two officers were being radioed that there was no evidence of a burglary at the pharmacy.
"We accept Officers C and D were unaware that Officer E was attempting to contact them," the IPCA said.
The officers drove the boy to hospital, where he was treated for his injuries.
Use of police dog 'justified' - IPCA
In its decision, the IPCA said the use of the dog was "justified and did not amount to excessive force".
"The officers had reasonable cause to suspect that the occupants of the car had been engaged in quite serious offending, and it was appropriate for the dog handler to release the dog to prevent their escape."
Police acknowledged the findings and praised the professionalism of the officers involved.
"The staff involved acted quickly and professionally to a call for service and to apprehend the occupants of the vehicle," Waikato District Commander Superintendent Bruce Bird said.
"They were working with information available to them at the time and showed sound decision-making during this incident with the safety of our community at the forefront of their minds."
SHARE ME