Thread: Volunteer hurt by police dog sues handler

Volunteer hurt by police dog sues handler, Vancouver city


Neal Hall, Vancouver Sun

Published: Saturday, November 01, 2008
A Vancouver police volunteer is suing the City of Vancouver and a police dog handler after she was attacked and injured during a police-dog training exercise.

In her legal action filed in B.C. Supreme Court, April Darsch claims she was a volunteer with the VPD Citizens' Crime Watch program and was invited by police to attend the police dog training course and be the person the dog gets to know as his "quarry."

As part of her lawsuit, Darsch submitted two pages from the Vancouver police website describing the quarry as "a civilian employee of the Vancouver police department who is hired on a casual basis to assist in the training of police service dogs by acting as the subject for which the dog is taught to search."



Her first training session, which required her to pay a $35 fee, was on Oct. 29, 2006 at the PNE grounds.

She said the police dog, Ace, is a German shepherd-cross weighing about 85 pounds (40 kilograms).

While she was wearing a protective suit, Ace bit her in the right shoulder and landed with his paws on her right knee, which made a "popping" sound, Darsch's lawsuit claims. She claims the dog tore the anterior cruciate ligament on her right knee, which later required reconstructive surgery.

Police told her to complete a Workers' Compensation Board form for the injury, but her claim was rejected, with the WCB finding that "at the time of the injury the worker was not covered by the Workers' Compensation Act."

She also tried to resolve her claim with the city, which rejected it, the lawsuit states.

Now she is suing the city and the dog handler, Const. Reg Forster, for negligence, claiming the injury caused Darsch pain, suffering, loss of sleep and possibly a permanent injury, affecting her past and future earning capacity.

Darsch's lawyer, Jeff Bryant, said Thursday his client was reluctant to speak to the media about the lawsuit.

"She likes the police and volunteers with them," he explained, adding that she feels she should be compensated for her injury, which required a knee brace and the use of crutches afterward. "If it happened during her second session, she could have got WCB," Bryant said. "But this was the training session."