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 A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on
Friday reversed a lower court's dismissal of the lawsuit, which
claims bite-and-hold tactics employed by police violated her
constitutional protection against unreasonable search and seizures.
In a 2-1 decision, the appeals panel ruled that a reasonable jury
could find that policemen called to investigate a burglar alarm the
woman had set off used excessive force when they "unleashed a police
dog that the officers believed was likely to rip a person's face
off."
The ruling, which has implications for law enforcement across the
U.S. West, allows the complaint brought by Sara Lowry to proceed to
trial.
 Her suit stems from an ordeal that began Feb. 11, 2010, when Lowry
returned to her workplace after consuming five vodka drinks in an
evening with friends and fell asleep beneath a blanket on the office
couch.
Three policemen, responding to the alarm she inadvertently tripped,
arrived with a police dog and found the door to Lowry's darkened
second-floor office propped open.
According to an account detailed in court documents, the dog's
handler shouted: "This is the San Diego Police Department! Come out
now or I'm sending in a police dog! You may be bitten!"
After repeating the warning without a reply, he unleashed the dog,
which ran into the office, pounced onto the couch and attacked
Lowry, tearing open her upper lip.
Spotting the woman with his flashlight, the officer called the dog
back to his side. But by then, Lowry was bleeding profusely from a
wound that would take three stitches to close.
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The handler, Sergeant Bill Nulton, later told Lowry she was "very
lucky" because his dog "could have ripped your face off," according
to the account.
Nulton said in a deposition that police dogs are trained to enter a
building when they are unleashed and to bite the first person they
find and hold that bite until called off.
The dissenting appellate judge wrote that reinstating the suit means
any officer in the nine-state Western region encompassed by the 9th
Circuit who releases a police dog and follows with a flashlight in
search of a suspect could "wind up in trial."
San Diego police declined comment on the case.
(Reporting by Steve Gorman; Editing by Sandra Maler)
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