DUI defendant barking over being bitten by police dog

Local News

March 18, 2010

By CHRIS HARRIS, Staff Writer The Commonwealth Journal Thu Mar 18, 2010, 09:08 PM EDT

Somerset — A DUI defendant suffered a dog bite to the ear after fleeing from authorities — and now he’s letting state media hear all about it.

Brian Davis, a resident of Scottsville, Ky., according to the Pulaski County Sheriff’s Department, told WKYT News this week that one of the sheriff’s K9 units “walked over to” him while he was handcuffed and “mauled” his ear, taking it away in its mouth.

The TV news report also says that Davis claims he didn’t receive “adequate medical attention,” and he said that those attending to him at the local hospital “had me stitched up and brought me straight to jail without bandages or gauze.”

Sheriff Todd Wood discounts that version of the story, noting that the animal’s task was protect its handler — and that’s exactly what it was doing.

“We certainly don’t want anyone to be injured or hurt,” said Wood, “but our deputies were just doing their job.”

According to Wood, Deputy Steve Molen was in the Towering Hulls subdivision when he approached a vehicle with two individuals sitting in it last Friday and checked out the situation. (The incident originated in a driveway on Lakeview Avenue near Burnside, according to the sheriff.) As he ran checks on both subjects, they fled from the scene. Deputy Molen was the only officer present at the time.

Deputy Molen secured the vehicle and called in additional units to search on the ground for the two individuals — the other one has yet to be located or identified. Among the help was the K-9 unit, which serves as a protection dog but also has track-sniffing abilities.

Wood said that Davis was located on a couple of occasions, but continued to flee. He was finally found hiding beneath a porch.

“The deputy attempted to get him to come out, but he was very slow in doing so,” said Wood of Davis. “As he came out from underneath the porch, he failed to obey the command to show us his hands; he kept them underneath him.”

The deputy attempted to physically removed the suspect from under the porch when Davis allegedly “became aggressive.” That’s when the K-9 unit went to protect its owner.

“As a personal protection dog, it subdued the subject,” said Wood. “It’s trained to latch onto the subject’s arm. However, when the gentleman moved, unfortunately (the K-9) latched onto the ear instead of the arm as it was trained to do.”

Wood said that Davis was then handcuffed and placed under arrest, and given immediate medical attention at the scene. He was then taken to Lake Cumberland Regional Hospital for additional treatment.

Davis was “very uncooperative at the emergency room,” stated Wood, who noted that the defendant refused treatment from the hospital personnel.

“The medical staff wasn’t able to treat him as they would have liked to,” said Wood. “They were only able to do the necessities.”

Davis was taken from the hospital to the jail, and charged with fleeing from the scene, resisting arrest, probable cause DUI, and having a stolen license plate on the vehicle in which he was found.

Davis pleaded guilty to the above charges Monday. WKYT reported that he agreed not to pursue civil action against the sheriff but was pressured into the plea, for which he received a year’s probated sentence.

Wood observed that the situation could have been avoided had Davis complied with authorities in the first place.

“Even with all the circumstances that have taken place, if the gentleman had obeyed all commands — and the most important one is showing your hands; if you can’t see what (a suspect) is doing, he might be attempting to pull out a concealed weapon — then that (would not) have placed the deputies in danger,” said Wood.

“The K-9 was not aggressive in any manner until the gentleman refused to obey commands and the deputy tried to get his hands out from underneath him,” added the sheriff. “That will happen sometimes when a defendant will not cooperate.”

Wood noted that Davis was given misdemeanor charges, and that the incident would not have been worthy of notification to the press based on the specific offenses. However, now that Davis has talked to the media, Wood made it clear that the deputies were merely working to apprehend a suspect and protect those in the immediate environment — and the dog was protecting its handler in kind.

“It was a residential area with many families,” said Wood. “The most important thing is that the defendant was captured and put under arrest.”

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