Pregnant woman, 'mauled' by police K-9, sues IMPD

Mara Mancini was seven months pregnant in July 2015 when an Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department K-9 tore into her arm and thigh as the dog was chasing a suspect through her west-side neighborhood.

Those injuries forced her to undergo multiple surgeries and take pain medication that would leave her son addicted to narcotics, Mancini said in a lawsuit filed last week against IMPD in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana.

Mancini told IndyStar she can barely hold her son, now nearly a year old, for five minutes without a fiery sensation shooting up her arm, caused by the extensive scar tissue left from the surgeries.

After the attack, she said, officers told her that her medical bills, which have since reached six figures, would be taken care of. But Mancini, 21, said she has received nothing from the city.

Mancini's attorney, Jon Little, told IndyStar that Indiana has a law granting immunity for police dogs, and their handlers, in such incidents. According to Indiana law, a dog and its owner are exempt from the state's dog bite liability statute if the dog is owned by a government agency and the "dog is engaged in assisting the owner or the owner's agent in the performance of law enforcement or military duties."

"In Indiana, by law, and by previous precedent, police dogs can run amok without any form of redress for people," Little said. "That's why we're bringing a federal claim for deprivation of liberty for the time she was being mauled by the dog, the literal time she was being mauled by the dog.

"If this doesn't work, there is absolutely no way for her to sue, or anyone to sue, in Indiana when they are brutalized by a police dog."

IMPD officials declined to comment for this story because of the pending litigation. But in statements to IndyStar after the attack, police said Mancini came "running out of the house and one of our K-9s diverted (away from the suspect) and bit her."

"Our K-9s receive extensive training on a routine basis; however, no training can prepare our K-9s for the unexpected of someone running out at the same time we are chasing a possibly armed suspect," Sgt. Kendale Adams, an IMPD spokesman, said in a July 2015 statement. "Unfortunately, accidents happen in all professions, and we do our best to minimize those accidents."

The incident happened July 16, 2015, when an IMPD officer and his K-9 partner were chasing a suspect who ran from a traffic stop on the west side, police said.

Dequarius Walker, 19 at the time, ran from police after being pulled over in the 2600 block of West New York Street, according to a probable cause affidavit filed in his case. The officer who pulled over Walker saw him reach for something in his waistband, causing the officer to draw his weapon and request a K-9 unit to back him up.

When the K-9 and his handler arrived, they began tracking Walker, who was running through yards and hopping fences in the 300 block of North Addison Street, the affidavit said.

Meanwhile, according to the lawsuit, Mancini heard dogs barking and "general commotion" outside her home in that same block.

"I had just got home," Mancini told IndyStar. "I let (my dogs) out, then I had to use the restroom, (then) went to my living room, and that's when I heard people yelling. So, I thought my dogs were fighting with another dog."

She went to the front door to see what was going on, then stepped onto her front porch to get a better look.

As soon as she stepped outside, she said, she was attacked by the K-9, which had gotten inside her fenced yard as it was chasing Walker.

According to Mancini's lawsuit, the K-9 "dragged" Mancini to the ground and "mauled her." The dog tore open the skin on her elbow and sank its teeth into her arm and thigh, ripping out flesh.

An IMPD officer tried pulling the dog off Mancini and was injured in the process. Walker eventually was apprehended, unarmed and unharmed, a few blocks east of Mancini's home. He was convicted of resisting law enforcement and sentenced to a year in community corrections.

Mancini was left "bleeding on the ground," the lawsuit alleges. "When emergency medical technicians arrived on the scene, the injured IMPD officer was treated first."

One officer wrapped up Mancini's arm to stop the bleeding while waiting for the second ambulance to arrive, the first having already left with the injured officer, she said.

The officer and Mancini were taken to IU Health Methodist Hospital in "good condition," according to police, but the lawsuit says Mancini was told she needed "immediate" medical care because of the injuries.

During the care, the lawsuit says, Mancini began having contractions, and an OB/GYN was called to her side in case of a premature birth. Her surgeons took her to labor and delivery to stop her contractions, and she was released from the hospital the following afternoon.

Over the next few weeks, court documents said, the wound on Mancini's thigh became "severely infected."

"I was in and out of the hospital," Mancini said. "I couldn't do anything by myself. I couldn't shower or anything."

She had emergency surgery on Aug. 13 to remove a "golf ball-sized" infection that had festered in her thigh, and she was given medication to numb the "extreme pain she was suffering as well as the infection."

Three days later, she went into labor and gave birth to her son.

"I almost had him two months earlier because of (the attack)," Mancini said. "But, he stayed in there an extra month, thank God."

According to the lawsuit, the premature labor "was attributable to the extreme stress" of Mancini's injuries and infection. The lawsuit also states that her son was born with a narcotics addiction as a result of the pain medication she had been prescribed after her surgeries.

Until that point, Mancini said, she "had no problems at all during (her) pregnancy."

Mancini's son was admitted to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at Methodist for several weeks, while he was "weaned off of narcotics," the lawsuit says. In the meantime, Mancini had to leave the wound open on her leg while it healed over the next six weeks and was required to wear a fluid pump to drain the infection and excess fluid from her thigh.

A spokeswoman for IU Health Methodist Hospital declined to comment on Mancini's and her son's care.

Mancini is not the first bystander to sue IMPD for being attacked by a K-9. In 2001, while pursuing two suspects who ran from a traffic stop on the south side, an Indianapolis police officer let his K-9 off its leash to chase the suspects through the parking lot of St. Francis Hospital.

However, instead of pursuing and apprehending the suspects, the K-9 chased a hospital employee, pulled her to the ground, ripped off her shirt and bra and bit her wrist and hand.

Similar to Mancini's case, the officer "verbally ordered his police dog to release (the woman's) arm but the dog did not obey," court documents said.

In IMPD's statement from July 2015, Adams said the incident with Mancini would be reviewed by a K-9 supervisor, but the department did "not expect any disciplinary action" to follow.

"However, our K-9 unit may use it as a training opportunity to provide further guidance to our K-9 handlers," he said.

When asked this week about the results of the review, IMPD declined to comment. IMPD said the K-9, whose name is *Scooter, is still active in the department.

*Correction: An earlier version of this story included the incorrect name of the K-9 because of an IMPD error. The story has been updated to include the correct name. 

Call IndyStar reporter Michael Anthony Adams at (317) 444-6123. Follow him on Twitter: @michaeladams317.