ACLU Wants Fresno Police K-9 Records. City Fights and Loses Twice

Two sets of judges have ruled in favor of the ACLU in its request for records from the Fresno Police Department about its K-9s.

Now, the Fresno City Council will decide whether to continue blocking the civil rights group from seeing the records or release them. The city council will discuss the matter in closed session at its meeting Thursday.

Angelica Salceda, a Fresno County-based attorney and program director with the ACLU of Northern California, said the group sought records from several law enforcement agencies to compile data on police K-9s. The ACLU of Southern California filed a request for the records with the city in 2023. Most public records are disclosable under the California Public Records Act.

“Fresno instead decided that it wasn’t going to produce records, or if it did, it produced heavily redacted records. And so that was the crux of the challenge,” Salceda said. “We really hope that the city ends up complying with the responsibilities it has had since we first submitted this records request that entitle us to the records we’ve been seeking.”

Fresno City Council President Nelson Esparza is still evaluating what to do.

“I remain undecided on this particular issue. This is a pretty technical issue, and I’ll be leaning a lot on our internal experts as I navigate toward a final decision,” Esparza said.

ACLU’s Request

ACLU attorneys requested the following records in its PRA:

(1) any completed use of force forms or use of force reports concerning use of a police canine;
(2) use of force reports documenting police canine bites and/or injuries;
(3) records, including reports, concerning accidental police canine bites and/or injuries; and
(4) all records relating to the report and investigation.

After weeks of letters back and forth between attorneys, the ACLU filed a lawsuit in 2024.

“The ACLU requested these records due to growing community concerns about Fresno’s egregious use of police canine force and its disproportionate use against communities of color,” the ACLU said in its writ of mandate filed April 22, 2024.

The ACLU said the records the city returned were heavily redacted, “stripping them of their most relevant responsive content.”

The city responded two months later with partial and redacted records. The city produced reports from 2019, 2020, and 2022, but not 2021, the ACLU said.

“Rather than illuminating the circumstances surrounding Fresno’s use of police canines, these redacted reports provide little but a series of empty gray boxes,” the ACLU said in its writ. The city told the ACLU other information was withheld, citing exemptions to the PRA such as attorney-client privilege, the constitutional right to privacy, and investigative records.

ACLU Used Data for Report

“Fresno instead decided that they weren’t going to produce records, or if they did, they produced heavily redacted records. And so that was the crux of the challenge.” — Angelica Salceda, ACLU

The ACLU used its findings to release a report in 2024, “Weaponizing Dogs: The Brutal and Outdated Practice of Police Attack Dogs.”

“When it comes to the use of canines, they can result in pretty gnarly injuries. We wanted to understand how various departments use K-9s, when they decide to deploy them, and what types of calls they are used for,” Salceda said.

The report called the use of police dogs “outdated and dangerous.”

From the data Fresno provided, the police department does not have policies that limit K-9 use to instances where a threat of serious injury exists, for crowd control, or for violent crimes.

The civil rights group also supported 2023 legislation limiting the use of police K-9s. At the time, then-Fresno Police Chief Paco Balderrama criticized the bill, AB 742, by Assemblymember Corey Jackson, D-Moreno Valley. The bill died in the Assembly’s inactive file in 2024.

Judges Favor ACLU Over City

W. Kent Hamlin, a retired Fresno County Superior Court judge hearing the case, ruled in the ACLU’s favor May 19, 2025.

The parties argued over the definition of “great bodily injury” and “serious bodily injury” and whether those would be exempt under state law. Hamlin sided with the ACLU. The city could only redact personal identifying information for a victim or officer. He also awarded $1,413 in court costs to the ACLU.

An award for attorney fees is still being argued in court.

The city appealed to the Fresno-based Fifth District Court of Appeal. A three-judge appellate panel ruled for the ACLU. Justice Jennifer Detjen wrote the opinion, with Kathleen Meehan and Thomas De Santos concurring on March 23, 2026.

“City argues that the effect of construing the term ‘great bodily injury’ … will require City to divert its finite resources away from public safety and toward combing records and deciphering ‘byzantine legalese’ … City’s concerns regarding the burdens of complying with the section are, accordingly, ‘best directed to the Legislature,’ ” the court ruled.

The city has 30 days from the Court of Appeal ruling to file an appeal with the California Supreme Court.