First Amendment Coalition sues San Diego for records on police dog attack

SAN DIEGO (CN) — A nonprofit is suing San Diego to force the city to release incident reports and body camera footage of police siccing a dog on and firing bean bag shotgun rounds at a man who was never charged with a crime. 

According to a separate civil suit against the city, San Diego police responded to a report of a man allegedly displaying a weapon during an argument in a home by surrounding the house with 22 officers, two K-9 units and a helicopter. The police ordered people inside the home to come out one by one. The fourth person to leave was Marcus Evans. 

While barefoot and shirtless and keeping his arms up, Evans claims he was first shot three times by SDPD officers with bean bag rounds, which broke his tibia. While on the ground and pleading for officers to stop, a K-9 was released, latching onto Evans' arm and refusing to let go until officers physically removed it, he claims. 

Evans was taken to the hospital but never charged with a crime. “His only ‘crime’ was being a Black man living in a neighborhood in San Diego County, California,” he writes in his civil suit. 

A local videographer captured Evan’s arrest on video.

Under California’s Public Records Act, the city and any municipality in the state are required to release public records that concern the conduct of public entities, especially police shootings and serious use of force incidents. When the First Amendment Coalition requested all public documents and video and audio recordings of Evans' arrest, the city released one redacted call log document but refused to release anything else, the coalition claims. 

On Wednesday, the coalition filed suit in San Diego Superior Court, claiming the city unlawfully refused to release public records. 

“Nothing is more important to public trust in government than transparency, especially transparency about use of force by police that involves firearms or causes extensive injuries such as those Mr. Evans suffered,” wrote David Loy, legal director of the First Amendment Coalition, in a press release. “The people have the right to the full story, not just the official story, so they can decide for themselves whether officers acted appropriately.”

While Evans pursues a separate false arrest, imprisonment and civil rights case against the city, Loy said that FAC’s position is that the public has a right to access the public records in the case regardless of what happens in the civil case.

“This is a separate case, but if the records are public, they’re public for everyone,” Loy said. “Transparency is the oxygen of accountability,” he added. 

FAC is asking the court to force the city to release the records or order the city to show cause why the records shouldn’t be released. If the court doesn’t grant their request to release the records, FAC requests that the court conduct an in-camera review where the documents would be discussed between the two parties and reviewed to see if they can or can’t be released to the public under attorney-client privileges. If that happens, FAC is then asking the court to release the requested records. 

The city of San Diego declined to comment on pending litigation.