Cedar Rapids pays $50,000 in lawsuit following police dog attack

CEDAR RAPIDS — City officials have agreed to pay $50,000 to settle one of two lawsuits filed against the police department involving a police dog who attacked a homeless man in 2018 and a 13-year-old boy last year without being commanded to do so.

The city on Tuesday approved the “compromised settlement without admitting liability” to Howard T. Cones, according to lawyer Mark Liabo, who represented Cones.

Cones, who was homeless at the time, filed the lawsuit in June, asserting he was sleeping under a picnic table around midnight July 12, 2018, in Poets Park, 1200 17th St. SE, when Ace, a police dog, “viciously attacked him.”

Liabo said Cones’ right elbow was “torn open,” wounds that required 12 stitches at Mercy Medical Center.

“Fortunately the wounds healed, but he has been left with scarring and some nerve pain or sensitivity in the elbow area,” Liabo said.

The lawsuit stated Ace, his K-9 handler Officer Nathan Trimble and two other officers came to the park that night to do a training exercise for the dog. Ace was required to smell a scent and find an object.

The dog was released but, rather than finding the intended object, he attacked Cones, the lawsuit stated, which claimed the officers were negligent in failing to properly train and control the dog.

The city initially denied the allegations and asked the court to dismiss the lawsuit.

Liabo told The Gazette in June the police report said Trimble noticed Ace had a distinct change in behavior when he was about 35 yards out and then he saw Ace jump on a picnic bench.

Ace attacked Cones, who was lying on the ground beneath the bench. Trimble ran over and removed Ace, Liabo said.

In their report, the officers — Trimble, Amy Shuman and Craig Fangmann — said they were unaware Cones was in the park. He was not a suspect and didn’t do anything to provoke the dog, they said.

There is no body camera footage of the incident, as there is in the other lawsuit involving Ace.

Second lawsuit

In the other lawsuit, TonyaMarie Adams of Cedar Rapids asserts excessive force was used on her Black 13-year-old son — because of his race and appearance — when the 6-year-old Belgian Malinois attacked him.

This suit was initially filed in Linn County District Court but later refiled in U.S. District Court because it asserts federal claims of excessive force by police and racial discrimination. A trial date is set for Sept. 26, 2022.

The city has denied the allegations.

The attack happened Aug. 13, 2020, three days after derecho hit Cedar Rapids — leaving the city without electricity and cellphone service, as well as downed trees and debris throughout the city.

Police officers were pursuing young Black males, suspected of stealing a vehicle and possibly armed, along Eighth Street NW near Ellis Boulevard in the early morning hours

The police report said the teen had planned to spend the night at a friend’s house Aug. 12, but the friend wasn’t home and he ended up falling asleep in his friend’s backyard.

The lawsuit asserts Ace bit the teen without a command and wouldn’t release him after Trimble gave a command to do so. The mother’s lawyer provided the police body camera video to the The Gazette in May after the lawsuit was filed.

The 13-year-old was taken to a hospital to be treated for his injuries.

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