Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the K9 Policy topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Oversight office urges GRPD to classify canine apprehensions as use of force, add protections and public reporting
Summary
An Office of Oversight benchmarking review of Grand Rapids Police Department K9 policy recommended explicitly classifying canine apprehension as a use-of-force option, narrowing deployment thresholds, adding vulnerable-population protections, requiring supervisor approval when a bite is foreseeable, standardizing warnings and publishing demographic deployment data; the police chief said many of these practices occur in department operations and will return with a formal response.
Brandon Davis, director of the Office of Oversight and Public Accountability and of Equity and Engagement, told the Public Safety Committee that OPA's benchmarking review of GRPD's K9 policy 6-8.1 compared the department's written language to national guidance and peer cities and produced a series of recommendations to align the written policy with national best practices and with what the department reports it routinely does in practice.
"This is a benchmarking analysis," Davis said, stressing the review evaluated the written policy and handler manual and was not an examination of individual incidents or a legal opinion. The study used a three-part framework — cross-policy analysis, nationally recognized best practices, and peer-city comparison — and evaluated 10 benchmarking factors including force classification, apprehension thresholds, supervisor approval, warning requirements, bite-incident review, vulnerable-population protections, transparency and reporting, training methodology, demographic tracking and recall/control.
Among OPA's strongest recommendations was that the city explicitly classify canine apprehension and bites on the department's use-of-force continuum so those events are treated and documented like other force incidents. "One is to classify canine apprehension as a use of force. It's one of the strongest recommendations we're making," Davis said. The report also recommended narrowing the circumstances in which off-lead apprehensions are authorized, requiring supervisor authorization before deployments where a bite is foreseeable, standardizing warning language (and documenting any waiver), routing bite reviews to internal affairs, clarifying training methodology in written policy, and requiring demographic collection and public reporting of K9 deployments and bite incidents.
Davis said the review found gaps between the written canine policy and other GRPD policies: for example, the department's de-escalation policy does not expressly list canine apprehension as a use-of-force option, and the canine policy does not explicitly carry the youth, deaf/hard-of-hearing, or incapacitated-person protections that appear in other departmental policies. "These protections exist in other GRPD policies," he said, "but we're talking about the written policy as it relates to the canine policy." He added that though some practices are reflected in the handler manual or in departmental practice, OPA's position is that the canine policy should clearly document them for transparency and accountability.
Interim Police Chief Trigg told the committee that while some reviewers found omissions in the written policy, GRPD treats canine apprehensions as use-of-force events in practice and requires use-of-force reports and IA involvement when bites occur. The chief said handlers train regularly and that the department aims to meet or exceed national standards. "Our K9 handlers train monthly and they put hours and hours in," the chief said during the presentation; Deputy Chief Baker later corrected that canine training is conducted weekly.
Mayor and commissioners welcomed the report and asked the chief to return with a departmental response. "I think it's clear to me from the presentation that our biggest opportunity is to essentially document what we're already doing," the mayor said, urging the department and OPA to work together to identify which recommendations can be implemented in policy language. Several commissioners asked that the city also review related topics such as foot-pursuit policy and situate policy changes alongside planned uses of public-safety trust fund dollars.
Committee members asked for more detail about training, handling of incidents when a dog misses its intended impact area, and the documentation that would follow an incident. The chief acknowledged animals can mis-hit a target and said the department would return with more detail and offered to present training footage and invite committee members to observe canine training and ride-alongs. "They're animals. They can miss their spot," the chief said, adding the department planned a K9 program presentation that could include training video and demonstrations.
The report cited several national sources and peer jurisdictions as reference points, including the International Association of Chiefs of Police, the Police Executive Research Forum, the National Association for Civilian Oversight of Law Enforcement and model standards from the Washington State Criminal Justice Training Commission; peer comparisons included West Covina, Detroit, Madison, Worcester, Fort Collins, King County Sheriff's Office, Traverse City, Salt Lake City and Spokane. CALEA accreditation was also noted during discussion: the chief said the department has CALEA accreditation and believed it dated to about 2018.
Next steps: the committee scheduled continued consideration and asked the chief to return with an initial departmental response at the next Public Safety Committee meeting; OPA and GRPD will discuss which recommendations can be incorporated into the written K9 policy and which will require further operational or training changes.
