A longtime Dallas police canine officer was suspended for three days Thursday, more than a week after a grand jury declined to indict him on a felony assault charge tied to an allegation he used inappropriate force.
The punishment came nearly a year after Senior Cpl. Scott Jay was placed on administrative leave — and later arrested on one count of aggravated assault, a second-degree felony — after hitting a robbery suspect running from officers through an east Oak Cliff neighborhood with his patrol vehicle.
A department internal affairs investigation found Jay used unnecessary and/or inappropriate force against a citizen, according to Allison Hudson, a police spokesperson.
Sean Pease, president of the Dallas Police Association, the city’s largest police union, said the association was troubled by how the investigations were handled and “respectfully disagrees” with the discipline.
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“The Dallas Police Association has stood behind him throughout this process,” Pease said in a statement, ”and we believe his actions reflected the judgment and dedication expected of an experienced officer responding to a dangerous situation.”
Hudson declined to comment on the association’s statement.
The man Jay struck was a suspect in a robbery and had a pocket knife, according to internal affairs records reviewed by The Dallas Morning News. He had reportedly dropped the knife and was fleeing officers on foot when Jay hit him in his patrol vehicle.
The man “experienced pain and minor injury” after Jay hit him, an officer wrote in an incident report reviewed by The News. Jay was placed on leave and arrested in July.
The criminal investigation was conducted by the department’s Public Integrity Unit, which investigates allegations of misconduct involving city officials and employees, including police officers.
Sr. Cpl. Scott Jay and his dog, Figor, were wounded while searching for a man suspected of a shooting in 2023.
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After his arrest, Jay’s attorney, Robert Rogers, argued the maneuver was in line with department policy and intended to “bump” the man off balance to prevent the encounter from escalating into deadly force.
By declining to indict him, the grand jury effectively ended the current criminal case against Jay. Grand jury proceedings are conducted in secret, and jurors determine whether the evidence collected by investigators and prosecutors is sufficient to bring criminal charges.
Rogers described the criminal investigation by the Public Integrity Unit as “incompetent” and the three-day suspension as “not supported by the objective evidence.”
“Every internal DPD use of force expert interviewed agreed that Scott’s actions were appropriate and justified,” he wrote in a statement. “To punish a hero for safely ending an escalating encounter with an Aggravated Robbery suspect makes no sense.”
Jay joined the department in 1997 and is assigned to the Canine Unit. In 2023, he was honored by Gov. Greg Abbott after he and his dog, Figor, were wounded in a deadly shootout in Pleasant Grove while tracking a man suspected of an earlier shooting.