{"id":683105,"date":"2026-05-21T01:00:13","date_gmt":"2026-05-21T01:00:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/683105\/"},"modified":"2026-05-21T01:00:13","modified_gmt":"2026-05-21T01:00:13","slug":"calgary-officer-cleared-after-police-dog-mistakenly-takes-down-nine-year-old-girl-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/683105\/","title":{"rendered":"Calgary officer cleared after police dog mistakenly takes down nine-year-old girl"},"content":{"rendered":"

A nine-year-old girl who was attacked by a Calgary police dog<\/a> while officers were chasing a suspected car thief was a case of a \u201cconfluence of errors,\u201d Alberta\u2019s police watchdog said in a report released Wednesday.<\/p>\n

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The Alberta Serious Incident Response Team<\/a> said while the outcome was \u201cserious and extremely unfortunate,\u201d there were no reasonable grounds to believe that an offence was committed when the girl was attacked in February 2025.<\/p>\n

In its formal report, ASIRT said a suspect in a stolen vehicle investigation was being chased on foot and refused to stop for police.<\/p>\n

A police service dog was then deployed to chase the suspect down.<\/p>\n

The dog\u2019s handler, who had been part of the Calgary police canine unit for 10 years, lost sight of the animal and could no longer issue commands.<\/p>\n

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ASIRT said the dog pursued the suspect into the backyard of a home.<\/p>\n

The suspect ran across the backyard to the other side of the home, but the dog continued straight through an opening in the back fence, across an alley and into a green space where the girl was walking home with her friend.<\/p>\n

The dog handler had expected to hear \u201cthe offender struggling with the (dog) or screaming \u2026 and was surprised when he didn\u2019t,\u201d the report said.<\/p>\n

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He then noticed an open gate at the back of the yard and heard officers in a helicopter transmit over the radio that the dog was in a field with some children.<\/p>\n

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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tASIRT investigating after Calgary police dog bites child\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

The report said the dog initially ran past the girl, but when she started running away in the opposite direction, it turned around and went after her, jumping up and biting her backpack and hair.<\/p>\n

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The girl then fell on the ground and the dog bit her leg, the ASIRT report said. The dog let go after its handler arrived and called the animal off.<\/p>\n

The girl was helped to a police vehicle, where she waited for an ambulance.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is why I hate dogs,\u201d the girl reportedly told one of the officers.<\/p>\n

She was then sent to the Alberta Children\u2019s Hospital, where she was treated for the five puncture wounds on her thigh, \u201cone of which extended deep to the muscle.\u201d<\/p>\n

ASIRT noted in its report that police dog handlers can face criminal charges if they deploy the animals in circumstances that do not abide by their standard training or guidelines.<\/p>\n

\u201cCriminal negligence causing bodily harm looks at whether there was a marked and substantial departure from the conduct of a reasonably prudent person.<\/p>\n

In this case, there is no evidence that this duty was breached to the requisite criminal standard,\u201d the report said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was a confluence of errors that contributed to the unfortunate outcome on this date.\u201d<\/p>\n

The report said the officer was not aware at the time he deployed the dog that there was an open green space where children were present behind the home the suspect was running toward.<\/p>\n

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He also wasn\u2019t aware that the backyard gate had been left open.<\/p>\n

ASIRT concluded the girl was an unintended target and the officer acted reasonably in deploying the dog to apprehend a fleeing suspect.<\/p>\n

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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tDog shot dead, police officer injured after incident in Calgary\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t&copy 2026 The Canadian Press\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A nine-year-old girl who was attacked by a Calgary police dog while officers were chasing a suspected car…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":683106,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194293],"tags":[250519,59791,49,2798,242733,48,2169,28462],"class_list":["post-683105","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-calgary","tag-alberta-serious-incident-response-team","tag-asirt","tag-ca","tag-calgary","tag-calgary-police-canine-unit","tag-canada","tag-crime","tag-investigations"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/683105","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=683105"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/683105\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/683106"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=683105"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=683105"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=683105"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}