A heated debate: Should the Gainesville Police Department disband its K-9 unit?

Flaring emotions created an intensely divisive atmosphere between police and community members Wednesday evening as both filled a City Hall auditorium arguing whether police dogs in Gainesville should be removed from service.

Following two postponements, Gainesville city commissioners gathered to discuss the Gainesville Police Department’s K-9 policy in the wake of Terrell Bradley losing an eye during his widely publicized apprehension in July.

City staff will now bring back recommendations on what GPD would look like with either a modified version of its K-9 unit, or no unit at all. The recommendations, however, aren’t expected until a new commission is sworn in in January.

“I want to make it very very clear that for me, tonight is about the people,” said Commissioner Desmond Duncan-Walker, who called for Wednesday’s special meeting.  “I take nothing away from the Gainesville Police Department…you have had the opportunity to present now, I believe, twice. But it’s kind of been a one-way conversation.”

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GPD's case

Indeed, in addition to his presentation Wednesday, GPD Chief Lonnie Scott delivered a carefully crafted video and narrative on Sept. 8 in announcing that two simultaneous investigations had cleared his agency of any wrongdoing for its use of a K-9 unit in arresting Bradley.

Since then, three officers were disciplined for taking photos of Bradley's injuries that were not submitted into evidence, and two others were suspended without pay for making insensitive comments relating to Bradley’s trauma, including Andrew Milman, the officer who pulled over Bradley on July 10.

“[I]t was the nastiest thing ever; his eye was just split open and just hanging outside of his face,” Milman said to another officer via an instant messaging service intended for official city business.

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Nevertheless, GPD continues to maintain that while Milman, along with a few other officers, may have acted inappropriately during and after Bradley’s arrest, no policies or procedures were broken.

But Duncan-Walker and others challenged that claim, saying just because it’s legal doesn’t make it right.

A history of targeting Blacks

“It is not lost on me how dogs have been used for many many years in the communities of African Americans,” she said. “It is not lost on me how dogs were used to apprehend those who were enslaved.”

Duncan-Walker also asked that a series of videos be played depicting police K-9’s attacking Black men across the country, including Bradley.

As though watching a horror movie in a crowded theater, citizens cringed at the images, with some seen wiping away tears.

“The images and the sounds are difficult to see and they’re difficult to hear,” Duncan-Walker said. “It’s unimaginable for me to be on the other end of a K-9 bite, a bite that some experts describe or likened to that of a shark bite or a gunshot.”

Extreme divisiveness

With several outbursts from both community members and police, Wednesday’s meeting marked what, perhaps, has been one of Gainesville Mayor Lauren Poe’s most divisive meetings.

In a flurry of public comment in favor of scrapping GPD’s K-9 unit, citizens argued that not only are the dogs difficult to control, but also disproportionately attack Black men.

For the past three years, GPD’s dogs have attacked Black men at a much higher rate than whites and Hispanics. For example, in 2022, 10 Black men were bitten compared to just two whites and no Hispanics, according to data from GPD. Similar statistics were also seen in previous years.

“I can’t say that I was shocked, but I was very disappointed to see who the dogs bite,” said Commissioner Cynthia Chestnut, looking toward officers standing in the room.

Still, fire wasn’t directed only at GPD Wednesday night, but also toward the commission.

Among nearly 30 public commenters, several young people spoke, including Theon Young, who commended Duncan-Walker for taking the issue head on, but blasted other commissioners for their seemingly, yet disingenuous, progressive stance.

“Y’all try to act like y’all are on our side…but when it’s time to make a change, y’all are the main people in the way of the change,” he said.

Local NAACP chapter President Evelyn Foxx said while she appreciates the police, no human being should have to go through what Bradley went through, and that after watching the body camera footage of his arrest, she couldn’t sleep for three nights.

“I was horrified to see that that actually happened to a human being,” she said. “We have dogs, K-9s, that literally will eat a person’s eye out.”

Police: K-9s are a needed police resource

Police advocates, however, argued that with a rising number of vacancies at GPD, removing the K-9 unit will not only lead to more officers leaving the department, but also would severely affect officer and public safety.

GPD Sgt. Joseph Caster delivered passionate remarks, pleading with commissioners to not take away more of GPD’s resources, adding that he was speaking as citizen from the hood and not as a police officer.

“My question to the commission is, 'What do you want us to do at the police department?' ” he said. “You’ve taken away a lot of our resources, you’ve taken away the helicopter that we used to apprehend suspects, and now you want to take away the dog. The dog is a resource…we’re willing for that dog to get shot and killed (in place of an officer), that’s what that’s for.”

Others in support of K-9s said eliminating the unit would be a huge mistake and that the community is missing the big picture.

“I think what’s missing here is the amount of training hours these dogs go through to be trained, and they even have to pass a state certification process to work the road,” said Larry Seal, a former police K-9 handler. “The reality is in today’s environment, police officers are under attack” and need access to all available tools, including K-9s.

Most aggressive dog

Still, body camera footage from the Bradley incident shows K-9 Ranger (the dog that bit Bradley) was hardly trained and extremely aggressive.

In fact, Ranger was known by officers to be the most aggressive dog on GPD’s K-9 unit and could be seen almost biting his handler on the body camera footage. After a brief suspension and additional training, Ranger has since returned to the road.

Chestnut said Wednesday that while the commission shouldn’t immediately decide the fate of GPD’s entire K-9 unit, Ranger should, at least, be out of service.

“I think we need to look at it when a dog is so vicious, should that dog be retired,” she said. “And I think in this instance, this particular dog should’ve been and should still be retired."

Cleary agitated following public comment, Scott said that his officers are some the best trained in the country and that he was frustrated at how his department has been negatively painted in recent months.

“Now I’ll invite any of the folks in this room to join us in walking into those situations when gunshots are being fired, but you’re not going to have a lot of folks doing that.” he said. "So, don’t demonize the people that work for the Gainesville Police Department because they are some of the better people of this community.”

Why was the meeting postponed twice?

The special meeting was originally slated for Sept. 20 before being rescheduled to Oct. 12 and then again to Nov. 16.

“The very first time this meeting was rescheduled…was because it was initially put on a date in which we would not have access to broadcast, and it was very important to me that people who were not able to join this conversation…could see us,” Duncan-Walker said.

As for the second cancellation, Duncan-Walker cited personal health issues.

Javon L. Harris is a local government and social justice reporter for The Gainesville Sun. He can be reached by phone at (352) 338-3103, by email at jlharris@gannett.com or on Twitter @JavonLHarris_JD.

This article originally appeared on The Gainesville Sun: Gainesville City Commission considers fate of police force's K-9 unit