An unarmed man who was attacked twice by a San Diego police dog and shot with multiple bean bag rounds in an incident last month filed a claim Wednesday against the city for injuries he suffered, the first step toward a possible lawsuit.
San Diego-based attorney Dante Pride on Wednesday said his client was passively resisting officers who arrived at a home in the Encanto neighborhood on Oct. 24.
“You cannot use force if passive resistance is the only thing that you’re encountering,” Pride said at a news conference held outside of the department’s Southeastern Division station.
During the incident, Marcus Evans, 31, was contacted by police in connection with a report that a man had threatened a woman with a gun.
In video footage captured by a videographer with SIDEO.TV, Evans can be seen exiting the home on Duluth Avenue with his hands raised, wearing only basketball shorts.
Evans speaks to police and sits on a wall, with his hands still raised, before he is shot with a bean bag round and falls to the ground. While on the ground, Evans is shot twice more with bean bag rounds and attacked twice by a police dog as Evans screams.
Evans was eventually taken into custody, treated at a hospital and released. He was not booked into jail, according to police officials. The criminal investigation into Evans was turned over to the City Attorney’s Office for possible prosecution.
The City Attorney’s Office said Wednesday the investigation was still open and declined to comment further.
“Despite posing absolutely zero threat to officers, SDPD officers inexplicably decided to deploy multiple attacks of force … in contravention of both SDPD’s training policies and POST standards,” the claim, filed by Pride on behalf of the Evans, reads. “This misconduct resulted in serious and traumatic injuries to (Evans).” POST, short for the state’s Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training, certifies California law enforcement officers and sets training standards.
