Here in South Africa, the “use of force issue” has been in the spotlight many a time many a day, and with the combination of the media doing their bit of good labelling it “Savage Biting Police Dogs” vs. poor criminals have been on the lips of every reporter in every news paper, Right around the world. Since then a dog has been considered to be Lethal force here – (not Officially but it has been imprinted as such) and this was not a ruling by The Supreme court, just a local court, and other courts followed suite, where the judge said you should have used your fire arm instead of your dog officer – since then all dog handler have been given Standing orders from the Minister of Police, which, says that only schedule one ( Murder, rape, Hi –jacking , armed robbery etc.) offences committed, with escapees and or armed suspects may be in gauged with dogs, no crowd control, or riot control. And that every dog must be trained in accordance with the SAQWA International standard and curriculum as registered by the South African Police, with certification every three months, other wise no dog may work.

So yes, this made me think, how would this effect the USA K9 Police today should the same ruling take place, or a turn of events forces this issue over there - where no one state has a uniform standard by which to train and pass out Patrol dogs for all the utilise and train them, that is universal and adopted by all k9 units in the USA today, and should a ruling be made, to make it compulsorily for k9 working body’s, to enforce this by means of a decree or what ever, that working certification every three months would then be a pre-requisite, and that only accredited organisations are allowed to train to a national approved curriculum, what would happen to the police K9 dogs, well could some one shed some light on this question?, I think it would be interesting.

Many Canine trainers will agree that some sort of uniform, basic standards should be in place for PSD's in this country. The real issue is exactly WHAT those standards should be, as well as WHO will enforce them.

I would imagine that any Federaly mandated policy requirements would probably have to be administered by someone like the FBI, and the really scarey thing about that is the fact that Federal agencies do NOT do "response police work", nor do they have any sort of institutional history of doing so. If you don't make "house calls" you don't do the type of law enforcement that benefits the most from patrol dogs...and you probably have exactly NO idea of how they should be trained or used.

I could only hope that an attack of extremely rare "Common Sense" would visit Washington should something like this ever take place!

Of course it might be fun to watch some of the brawls that would surely take place among the "Federal Canine Advisory Committie" of training experts at various meetings around the country! I'd be willing to bet there might be bones broken and stitches needed before they were over! Ha! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" />

I think it would be disasterous to federalize canine work for law enforcement. Like Mike said, it would be somewhat advantagous to have "federal guidelines" for training, and perhaps certification, but to lay down policy as to when a dog can or can not be deployed is taking it too far. Officers are expected to use common sense and to use their discretion to address various situations. It is much like a math equation,
X + Y = Action to be taken

X could be considered the officer's discretion, Y could be considered department guidelines, but if you eliminate the X factor (forgive the pun), you have no answer. In my opinion, there are simply too many factors that can affect the officer's discretion to deploy a dog. The guidelines are in place to coach the officer to that final decision (much like a map) but without that added element (discretion) the situation can become far more serious, and can become unsolvable.

It seems to me that a dog, if properly trained can do far less damage than most non-lethal weapons, so for that court to imply use the gun first.......makes me wonder about the skills of the handlers and the dog's training and background. Is it really a use of force issue or is it a training issue?

Drew

Great point in case, I buy every thing you said except for the closing remark, it is always funny how every disastrous discretion call and problem has it’s solution in training, this magic fix is to be found in training – I say no:

A) If the training was done, and it was good and the dog was found to be trained to the required standard and passed out, then the problem should be in the handlers judgement call to release the dog. (Discretion – just some thing on discretion, it’s only as good as what that person is experienced and schooled in the field that he has to make a decision in based on his Discretion – bad call – if I am a civilian I do not want cops around using a lot of discretion), I want legislation to guide them, departmental guide lines, training and standard operating procedure’s, so it stands to reason that their was no guide line to say do not bite under these circumstances, use a gun – so even in this scenario, where their was guidelines the officer still had a discretion call to make , he opted for the dog. So how can you blame training here – I do not see the relevance
B) Your equation lacks some provisions, -Observation,- Orientation,- Decision –Act/ don’t act, start again Observation etc. seems to be more of an equation, it’s always simple to simplify but when it comes to explaining the actions taken, no court or lawyer seems to be to interested in your Discretion at the time of the incident, neither your dogs training but- what was your MOTIVE – and – GROUNDS FOR JUSTIVICATION seems to be at the order of the day more or less all the time, it’s only in court that the technical bs. Comes to play as a side show.
C) What seems to be, is not a dog properly trained has no pre- divined deaf acre like a bomb, it could have an average bite until one day then it kills , or amputates, there is no guarantee, let me assure you men have died here from dog bites, have lost half a face, testicles, fingers etc. just like a gun, you can not tell if the shot will be a kill, or a flesh wound every time you pull the trigger – assumption, granted the ratio is low but it’s a high risk never the less.
D) And even with this strict guidelines and policy we still utilise our dogs more that any other agency I know of.

Instalment number two brings me back to “proper” TRAINING, and I know it will boil right down to it no matter what i argue:

So answer this, if there is no standard, to train by or to be measured by, how will you know that you are making the grade ? and who said you have if you do not have one state or national standard to train to, How will you correct the dog if he is not “properly trained?

So I was wonder how would the courts view this over their with out speculating and I found this little darling site http://www.k9fleck.org/k9neg.htm - so it seems to me that the dog will be viewed as lethal force if you do not get your selves a standard soon. The key word here is “standards” – but who’s?

I think I understand where you are coming from. As far as the equation goes, it could be broken down even further; the x factor (discretion) involves all of those things you mentioned, so yes it is a much more complex formula. The officer has to determine what x even is, before he/she can make the discretionary call as far as the deployment of the dog.

As far as a standard goes here in the states, it seems to me the the federal government wants to stay out of it for now. The idea of federalism is that the federal government oversees certain functions while allowing the individual states to remain moderately autonomous. Case in point, Police Officer Standards and Training.

Each state has their version of POST, with minimal federal guidelines. Typically, if the state's POST agency receives any federal funding, then they must meet certain requirements, but usually those requirements do not deal with training standards. Many states in my region (West) grant reciprosity for their POST certified officers with California and Nevada being noticable exceptions (among a few others). Also, most states within certain regions will typically have fairly consistent standards, will some variation according to the state's statute. As long as this is the case, the dogs will be certified and trained to the standard deemed appropriate by each individual state. In many states, there is not even such a standard for certification, although they are coming around rather quickly.

I am sure the time will come when the federal government will step in with a booming voice and say "this is how it is going to be". For now, that is just not the case. Case law here in the States tends to set the precident as far as deployment issues go. I think Mr. Sheldahl would be the better person to address that issue.

I know many states view the Utah POST service dog program as the elite program in the states. Many angencies have used to a "T" the Utah standards, while others have patterned their standards after Utah's with minimal adjustments. Perhaps that will be the trend over the next few years, but again, each state determines their standard with respect to case law on deployment issues. Accordingly, each state determines whether or not a K9 team is ready for street duty according to their standards. Keep in mind some states are more lenient than others.

Although their are instances where the dogs can inflict serious, and as you stated, even deadly injuries, the United States courts have clearly stated that the police K9 is not to be considered deadly force. This ruling has been challenged numerous times as victims of the dogs wrath have challenged that the dogs were excessive with regards to force, and could even be considered lethal, and each time the courts reverted back to the notion the dogs are not lethal. I believe some agencies are referring to the dogs as less-lethal rather than non-lethal for tehcnicla reasons more than anything.

Perhaps someone could clerify the latest court ruling on the use of force issue in regards to a police K9 deployment.

Regarding my comment on it maybe being a training issue, well, that should be considered. I am certainly not saying that alone is the problem, becasue I realize there are instances where everything that can go wrong, will go wrong, but it seems it could be a strong contributing factor.
I agree that you should have a standard of training for the dogs and their handlers, but for that court to rule the gun should have been used before the dog, I just can't understand. I would imagine these same type situations have occurred countless times here in the states, and to my knowledge, no court here has ever ruled the dog to be a greater threat than the firearm. Please correct me if I am wrong. Again it comes down to that mathmatical formula I used:

The courts have added an additional factor by limiting the deployment options for a unit. To me, all that does is complicate the formula.

Referring to your courts in South Africa.

I wonder if the South African law makers were the ones that had to face panga wielding criminals they would have adopted such regulations.
From my experience in the seventies you needed dogs of the type branded savage beasts,but again the powers that be try to compare all policing worldwide without consideration for local circumstances.
Paul

Drew / Mike / Paul

Thanks for a intellectual conversation, I learned some here and look forward to some more, and to my UK buddy yes the old timers ten to remember the days when the rule of law actually meant exactly that. – Drew politics had a major role to play in this ruling, we found it absurd as well – Well again this is Africa HA-Ha, where we do a lot of things seemingly totally back wards.

But know this, even with a “standard –NATIONAL’ the picture always relates in practice to the x and y equation you spoke of, it’s human nature, and I think it will always prevail.