Sheriff's Office Should Address K-9 Policy, Watchdog Agency Finds

SONOMA COUNTY, CA — The Sonoma County Sheriff's Office should reconsider the way it uses police dogs in the wake of a 2020 arrest that led to a civil rights lawsuit, the county's law enforcement watchdog agency announced Tuesday.

The Sonoma County Independent Office of Law Enforcement Review and Outreach (IOLERO) released its audit of Jason Anglero-Wyrick's arrest and found that a deputy likely violated department policy when he deployed the dog after Anglero-Wyrick was already incapacitated by a Taser stun gun.

"In this instance, the explanations for why and how the K-9 was deployed are contradictory and unresolved," according to the report.

It also found that Deputy Jeremy Jucutan violated policy by not getting the dog, "Vader," to release its hold on Anglero-Wyrick's leg quickly enough, even after the man was in handcuffs.

The report found that it took Jucutan 63 seconds to get Vader off of Anglero-Wyrick's leg partly because of Jucutan's "use of an ineffective collar, inadequate pulling motion on the collar, and defective shock mechanism."

"The audit calls on the Sheriff's Office to consider recommendations made by the IOLERO Community Advisory Committee to change the way the Sheriff's Office uses police dogs," IOLERO officials said in a statement.

Anglero-Wyrick was arrested on April 4, 2020, for allegedly violating his parole and resisting arrest after a confrontation with Sonoma County sheriff's deputies at his home in the unincorporated community of Graton.

All charges were later dismissed, according to court records.

Deputies were looking for Anglero-Wyrick because a resident of Forestville called 911 to say that he and a woman threatened him and may have pointed a gun at him.

Eventually, the person who called 911 admitted "he could not say that it was Mr. Anglero-Wyrick who drove by his home or that the person had a gun," although deputies didn't learn of this until after they made the arrest, and a gun was never found, according to the IOLERO report.

At the time, sheriff's officials described a chaotic scene involving Anglero-Wyrick, his then-girlfriend who was also arrested, and two other family members allegedly refusing to obey commands and yelling at deputies, among other things.

After his arrest, Anglero-Wyrick, whose leg was badly mauled, filed a civil rights lawsuit and was awarded a $1.35 million settlement with the county.

He also filed a complaint alleging violations of the Sheriff's Office policies on the use of force, deployment of a K-9 and Taser, use of body-worn cameras, search of property and biased policing.

An internal affairs report exonerated the deputies involved in the arrest who faced several allegations, including biased policing, use of the Taser, the property search and Vader the dog's role in the incident.

The same report also found that some of the deputies violated the body-worn camera policy, however.

While the IOLERO audit concurs on a number of points, including that several deputies improperly obscured or deactivated their cameras, it says the Sheriff's Office investigation into that behavior was incomplete.

A Sheriff's Office representative didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.

This is the first instance of an IOLERO audit being released as authorized by a 2018 law requiring certain misconduct complaints about law enforcement officials to be made public, including those involving death or great bodily injury.

"Historically, state law made reports like these confidential, and entirely prohibited release of these reports to the public," said John Alden, IOLERO director. "At IOLERO, we are grateful that the state has finally allowed us to make reports like these public, and we will be releasing more reports like these in the future."

By Kiley Russell. Copyright © 2023 Bay City News, Inc. All rights reserved. Republication, rebroadcast or redistribution without the express written consent of Bay City News, Inc. is prohibited. Bay City News is a 24/7 news service covering the greater Bay Area.