SALT LAKE CITY — Investigators at the Salt Lake City Police Department said the K-9 handler who was found not guilty of assault earlier this year used excessive force when he sicced his dog on a different suspect in 2019.
But the officer, Nickolas Pearce, won’t be disciplined for that arrest either. A police department spokesman said last week Pearce remains employed with Salt Lake City and on regular duty. “I'm not surprised,” said Gabriel White, an attorney for Jeffery Ryans, the man suing Salt Lake City over a 2020 bite that required surgeries.
“And I'm assuming that the officer doesn't… maybe realize,” White said, “that when you show up at somebody's house in the middle of the night, and there are officers yelling and screaming and running all over the place, that that frightens people, and they're apt to freeze.”
It was the bite of Ryans that created national headlines and spurred the Salt Lake County District Attorney to file assault charges against Pearce. After the jury found Pearce not guilty in February, Salt Lake City completed its long-paused internal affairs reviews of Pearce. It focused on whether Pearce violated department policies and standards.
According to records recently obtained by FOX 13 through a public records request, police department reviewers exonerated Pearce for siccing his dog, Tuco, on Ryans, in March of this year. The reviewers’ report mirrored Pearce’s defense at trial, saying that while Ryans had his hands up and was on one knee in the corner of his backyard, Pearce reasonably could have believed Ryans was still a danger or about to flee from officers.
In the 2019, case Pearce and Tuco were helping search for a burglary suspect. When they located the suspect, a city report says, he was not showing the officer his hands.
Reviewers said it was OK that Pearce gave Tuco the command to “hit” the first time. But then the suspect rolled over and held his hands up.
Pearce sicced Tuco again.
“Based on those facts,” reviewers wrote in an investigative report, “K9 Tuco’s second bite appears to be unnecessary and was not needed to accomplish the legitimate law enforcement purpose of taking [the suspect] into custody.”
The reviewers sustained complaints of excessive force and the K-9 apprehension policies.
To White, Salt Lake City is using inconsistent standards.
“I don't see the material difference between the one they sustained and the one where they didn't,” he said.
A Salt Lake City police spokesman declined to comment.
Once reviewers find an officer violated policy, administrators up the chain of command decide discipline. A captain in June of this year opted not to discipline Pearce for the 2019 bite, writing that using Tuco “was the safest and most effective means” of arresting the suspect.
The Salt Lake City Civilian Review Board issued its findings years ago. It called Tuco’s biting of Ryans excessive force, but it exonerated Pearce in the case of the 2019 burglary suspect.
The bite of Ryans and other suspects in 2020 spurred a review of the city’s K-9s. The use of dogs to apprehend suspects remains indefinitely suspended in Salt Lake City, though they may still be used to locate people.
Ryans’ lawsuit remains pending in federal court.