Police K9 Fails to Obey Commands, Seriously Injures Suspect

August 4, 2016

Roswell K-9 Attack: Officer Lorne Alston, K9 Robbie, and the Teen Who Was Already Sitting Down.

A disturbing 2016 Roswell Police Department K-9 incident involving Officer Lorne Alston and K9 Robbie became public nearly two years later after investigative reporting exposed dash-camera video of a police dog attacking a 17-year-old who appeared to be following police commands.

The incident happened on August 4, 2016, after Officer Alston attempted to stop a vehicle that had reportedly been listed as stolen. According to reporting by 11Alive and summarized by Patch, the vehicle eventually stopped inside an apartment complex. Several people were inside the vehicle, and two ran from the scene.

Officer Alston warned over a loudspeaker that he would release K9 Robbie if the fleeing suspects did not stop. One of the teens did stop. He walked back toward the officer, placed a shirt and backpack on the curb, sat down, and kept his hands visible. That should have been the moment the threat level dropped.

Instead, the video showed K9 Robbie barking intensely while Officer Alston repeatedly commanded the dog to halt. As Alston moved toward the seated teen with his gun drawn, Robbie broke toward the teenager and latched onto his arm.

The teen screamed as the dog continued biting him. Reports said Robbie ignored repeated commands to release, with The Washington Post later reporting that Robbie received about 20 commands to stop but did not comply. The Marshall Project also included the Roswell incident in its national review of serious police dog bites, noting that the teen had returned, sat on the curb with his hands up, and was bitten on the bicep before the dog broke free and bit him again.

Roswell Police Chief Rusty Grant later told 11Alive that it troubled him that the K-9 did not release sooner. According to Patch, the teen was hospitalized with severe bite wounds, and the charges against him were eventually dropped.

What makes the incident especially troubling is not simply that a police dog bit a suspect. Police K-9s are trained to apprehend people under certain conditions. The problem here is that the teenager had already stopped running, returned toward the officer, sat down, and kept his hands visible. The dog then attacked anyway, and the handler struggled to make the dog release.

A later 11Alive follow-up reported that a police K-9 expert believed Robbie should have been pulled from service after the incident. The same report said the dog was not taken out of service after the attack. 11Alive also reported that all charges against the teen were dropped and that he did not file a lawsuit before the statute of limitations expired.

The public release of the video came during a period of intense scrutiny for the Roswell Police Department. Around the same time, the department faced national attention over other misconduct-related incidents, including the infamous “coin flip arrest” and an incident involving a 13-year-old left in a cold patrol car. Patch reported that Chief Grant announced a “top-down assessment” of the department, including a review of department operations, communications, chain of command, and disciplinary policies.

For Roswell residents, the K9 Robbie video raised an obvious question: if a teen can follow commands, sit down, keep his hands visible, and still be mauled by a police dog, what exactly does compliance protect you from?

This case remains a troubling example of how quickly a police K-9 deployment can become excessive when control is lost, commands are ignored, and accountability comes only after video reaches the public.

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