So Far This Year, L.A. County Sheriff's Dogs Have Only Bitten People of Color

Decades after Bull Connor used German Shepherds to attack civil rights protesters in Birmingham, Alabama, police in Los Angeles were still using dogs to harass the city’s black residents, with some officers allegedly referring to black teens as "dog biscuits." Back in 1996 the L.A. Times reported that at the peak of this abuse, in 1989, the LAPD's 15-person canine unit sent more suspects to the hospital than the entire rest of the department combined.

Since then, reforms have been put in place in both the L.A. County Sheriff's Department and the LAPD, and the bite rate has fallen substantially. But a new report from the Police Assessment Resource Center reveals that the L.A. County Sheriff's Department canine unit is still used largely when arresting people of color, and more often than is absolutely necessary.