Why am I not surprised?
Police Officers’ Dog Ripped Out a Man’s Eye. Demand a Full Investigation, Now!
In July of this year, police in Florida decided to pull over a Black man driving at night near Gainesville, Florida — and it ended with their dog tearing out one of his eyeballs. The routine traffic stop turned violent after the police sicced their K9 on the young man, named Terrell Bradley. Frightened by being alone with police in the dark of night, he ran and hid in nearby bushes. Once their dog found him, it quickly began biting him and ripping his skin, latching onto a finger — and then Bradley’s face. Bradley begged for police to reign their dog in, but they refused. The young man repeatedly screamed “your dog ripped my eye out! I can’t open my ****ing eye!” before the unsympathetic cops finally called paramedics with Emergency Medical Services (EMS).
We know all of this because the Gainesville Police Department has finally released some of the bodycam footage from that night. This only came after months of departmental resistance — and the police made sure to edit the video first. The footage that we can see shows that, even after their dog had ripped Bradley’s right eyeball out of its socket, the cops continued to show callousness. One orders him to get up after being attacked, saying: “You can stand. Your legs work.” Then they arrested him.
And this is only the tip of the iceberg. A former police officer with this department recently sued Gainesville for widespread and systemic racism within the K9 unit specifically. The former employee details how, among other things, staff consistently referred to Black residents and officers using profane racial slurs. It should be no surprise, then, that the department cleared the officers involved of any wrongdoing in Bradley’s K9 maiming, saying they had conducted themselves “appropriately.” Obviously, this police department and its chief cannot be trusted with protecting human safety. That’s why it’s crucial to have an independent investigation, and for Florida to fire the officers and Police Chief involved. Sign the petition to demand true justice, now!