K9 Training Debacle Discussed By OC Supes, OCSD

On Tuesday, Orange County Board of Supervisors voted to direct the Office of Independent Review to look into the circumstances of how a county employee was bit by a K-9 unit dog during a training exercise on Aug. 29 in a Public Works building in Santa Ana.

The employee was working late as sheriff's deputies were doing the training exercise in his building, and when one of the dogs saw him, it pounced. The employee told Spitzer about it at a street fair in Orange over Labor Day weekend.

"He was obviously in a lot of pain," Spitzer said. "When I heard it, I was in shock."

Spitzer said he is "one of the biggest sponsors of the K9 program," but a gaffe such as this gives opponents ammunition to end it.

"My motivation is to make sure this never happens again ... and that we put protections in place to protect our employees," Spitzer said.

Nelson lashed out at sheriff's officials for not clearing the building properly before conducting the exercise.

"How do we continually get in these situations?" Nelson said. "It sounds like no one else is thinking."

Nelson said sheriff's officials at least could have posted notices throughout the building in advance. He faulted sheriff's officials for not having a policy on how to inform employees of such an exercise.

"We wouldn't fire down-range in a place we could expect people to be unless we put a bunch of notices up," Nelson said.

"Wouldn't it be obvious we'd start with, 'Beware, next week, beware today, please be advised at 6:30 p.m. you have to be clear of this building."'

Nelson added, "It's not like a lion escaped from the zoo. Your agency needs to hold people accountable. This is ridiculous, and I'm sorry I'm ranting, but I hope you appreciate my frustration... Who's responsible for this, who let this happen?"

Sheriff's Capt. Jason Park rebutted the situation by accepting responsibility for the fateful error.

"It's my division and I'm held accountable, my staff is being held accountable."

Park added that he and his co-workers were "heartbroken" over the dog attack.

"We're taking this very seriously and as much as we'd like to prevent it, we can't go back in time and change it, but we can invest all this energy to prevent it from happening again, creating the safest possible training," Park said.

The department has suspended any drills or exercises in any county buildings other than its own, Park said.

City News Service, Patch Editor Ashley Ludwig contributed to this report.

OCSD photo