It’s an unsettling coupling, one that hearkens back to protests in Birmingham and elsewhere, when police often attacked civil rights activists. In each instance, there was at least one portly Southern cop accompanied by a weaponized German shepherd.
The scary duo is seen in this resurfaced video as a cop tries to break up a group of spring break revelers in an unidentified beach town. The K-9 unit officer is first seen, with dog by his side, yelling at the young adults in a parking as he used the German shepherd to disperse the revelers.
At one point, he appears to be arresting a young woman in a bikini. A young man tries to peacefully intervene, but the cop bodyslams him to the ground even though he held his hands up.
The crowd is angered, screaming at the officer and insisting the young man he tackled “didn’t do anything.” The chaos seemed to confuse the canine, who turned and bit his cop handler.
“Oh my god. He’s biting him,” one of the onlookers exclaimed. ‘He’s biting his a–.”
The cop yells at the dog, but it takes the intervention of two other officers before the German shepherd relents and heels.
The K-9 unit officer is last seen backing away from the highly charged scene with the dog back by his side.
Daily Mail reports it wasn’t the only incident where cops were using dogs to tame Spring Break crowds. In Panama City, video captured police unleashing at least one drug dog on the town’s beach after a major gun bust turned up 75 illegal guns. Dozens of partygoers were seen on the video hurriedly running from the approaching canine.
As you’d expect, the officer who got bit received little sympathy on social media.
“Cop needs to be fired… fur baby cop deserves a treat!” wrote one commenter on Instagram. “Good BOI!”
“Now that’s a well-trained dog,” remarked another. “The dog is the real one protecting and serving,” added a third.
