A suspect turned victim, this is what happened to a woman who robbed a store.
A California woman has sued police in the Bay Area for allegedly using excessive force after part of her scalp was ripped off by a K-9 that mauled her ‘for several minutes’ until an officer had to physically remove its jaw from her head, following a robbery at an Ulta beauty shop of nearly $10,000 worth of cosmetics.
Talmika Bates, 26, claims she was traumatized by a German Shepherd named Marco after it went after her and chewed on her scalp during a shoplifting arrest, according to the lawsuit she filed Tuesday, February 22.
After Bates and the two other female suspects robbed the beauty supply store, they fled in a car. Eventually, police caught up with them, stopping the car. The suspects then fled on foot, which was when the police sent Marco to maul Bates.
According to Bates, the police dog reportedly refused to listen to commands at least twice and Brentwood Police Officer Ryan Rezentes had to physically remove Marco’s grip from Bates’ scalp. The disturbing incident was captured on police body cameras and the footage has now been made public by Bates’ attorneys.
In the clip, Bates is heard screaming in a field among some bushes where she was hiding when the K9 officer tracked her down and grabbed her by her scalp. Marco finally let go after several minutes and Bates was able to climb out of the bushes with the officers’ help. She soon realized that her skull was partially exposed as chunks of her scalp and hair were seen flopping on the top of her head in the graphic video. “My whole brain is bleeding,” Bates remarked, terrified.
Speaking to The Post, Patrick Buelna, a lawyer representing Bates, said the officers’ only response to his client’s cry for help was that she “shouldn’t have run.” Buelna continued, “Talmika says she still has nightmares of the dog grinding and chewing on her head. She says that she felt like she was going to die that day and really did not believe she’d live to tell her story but is alive and thankful. She had to have her scalp surgically reattached to her head. She suffers severe depression and remains traumatized from the mauling.”
The lawsuit claims that Officer Rezentes and other police officers are guilty of not alerting Bates to the fact that they unleashed a K-9 unit to find her while she was hiding in the bushes. The police allowed the dog to attack her for minutes while they simply waited.
Buelna is representing Bates along with Adante Pointiner. In a conversation with the New York Post, Buelna spoke about how police used excessive force in this case.
“Talmika says she still has nightmares of the dog grinding and chewing on her head,” Buelna said. “She says that she felt like she was going to die that day and really did not believe she’d live to tell her story but is alive and thankful. She had to have her scalp surgically reattached to her head. She suffers severe depression and remains traumatized from the mauling.”
Meanwhile, Bates and her legal team have also accused Rezentes of trying to cover up details of the incident after he wrote in a police report that there were no officers to cover him, which made it difficult for him to physically pull the dog off of her.
According to the attorneys, the videos showed another officer reassuring Bates he wouldn’t shoot the dog as it continued to grip the woman’s head. “Officer Rezentes failed to mention that Marco was out of control,” the complaint alleges.
Watch the video report here: Fox2/Youtube