A Montgomery County police officer is being sued because his police dog bit a teenage boy who had passed out drunk under a holly bush after wandering away from a Gaithersburg party, court records show.
Officer John Greene was also found in federal court to have violated a woman’s constitutional rights five years ago after the same dog, a Belgian Malinois named Carter, mauled the woman as she lay unconscious in her basement after a suicide attempt, according to court records.
After the court’s ruling, the county settled with the woman for $400,000, according to the woman’s attorney.
The father of the boy says Greene violated his son’s constitutional right against unreasonable seizure. The father, who lives in Rockville, is asking for unspecified damages.
A federal court refused the county’s request to throw out the case. The county, which says Greene’s actions clearly fell within the limits of the law, appealed the decision in December.
Terry Roberts, the lawyer for the boy’s family, said it was troubling that a police dog would be allowed to bite two people who were essentially defenseless.
“It says a lot about the police department’s supervision, or lack thereof, and it says a lot, I think, about the officer [controlling the dog],” Roberts said.
An attorney for Greene and the county declined to comment. But in court records, county attorneys said the officer’s handling of the dog was justified in both cases.
Greene decided to use Carter, who is trained to find and bite a suspect, to search for the teenager because he said his fear that the drunken juvenile could be at risk for hypothermia outweighed his concern that the dog would bite the boy, according to his attorneys. The incident occurred on March 17, 2006, when the boy was 13.
Additionally, Greene’s bloodhound, which is not trained to bite, was out with a knee injury and the county’s other bloodhound handler was an hour away, according to Greene’s attorney.
Greene sent Carter alone into the suicidal woman’s basement because he feared she may have been armed and a threat to the SWAT team members who were searching her house, county attorneys said.
Court records show that hospital staff said the woman had suffered bite wounds that were “too numerous to count” and required “complex” plastic surgery.
Roberts said Carter bit the teenager for 15 to 20 seconds and caused “serious injury” to the boy’s ankle.
Both Greene and Carter continue to serve in the Montgomery County Police Department.
