A police dog attacked Talmika Bates, 24, in Los Angeles, Calif. A large section of skin was ripped off her head by the German Shepherd, exposing the bone, prompting her attorneys to file a federal lawsuit on Feb. 3 of this year.
The attack happened in the affluent Brentwood neighborhood in Los Angeles on Feb. 10, 2020. Bates hid in the bushes after absconding from the police after being accused of theft when she was viciously attacked by the police dog, a German Shepherd.
“Help me!” yelled Bates. “The dog is biting me. My whole brain is bleeding!”
One officer responded that she shouldn’t run from the police. The dog was allowed to attack Bates for a full minute before an officer physically stopped the dog, who had ignored several commands to heel.
“We’re going to help you…but you shouldn’t run from the police.”
The police officers immediately seized the police dog on Bates without allowing her an opportunity to surrender. The dog, named Marco, went straight for her head.
They took her to the John Muir hospital in Walnut Creek, where the surgeons reattached parts of her scalp before she was taken to jail. Bates and two other women were accused of stealing $10,000 worth of goods from an Ulta Beauty store in Brentwood.
Adante Pointer is Bates’ attorney and called the vicious actions of the police callous. She also aptly likened their actions to the practices of slave catchers.
“It is just so callous,” said Poiter. “They obviously didn’t see this person as a human…. This unbridled use of an apparent blood-thirsty dog to track, hunt and then attack an unarmed fleeing woman as she lay in a set of bushes harkens back to the days of slavery and slave catchers.”
Pointer and attorney Patrick Buelna filed a federal lawsuit against the City of Brentwood and the police department. The lawsuit accused the police officers of causing Bates severe injury due to negligence and violation of policy.
Bates said that she was afraid she was going to die as she was being attacked.
“I really thought I was going to die,” she later said. “I really didn’t think that I was going to be able to tell this story and really explain to nobody. It’s just traumatizing. It’s just sad.”
According to the lawsuit, part of Bates’ head will permanently be deformed, and she now suffers from depression, headaches and memory loss. Marco is reportedly still on the job.
