Suit Filed: Fla Cop Released His K-9 on a Surrendering Black Man and Encouraged the Dog to Repeatedly Bite Him Causing Unconsciousness

From [FTP] and [MORE] Riviera Beach, FL — Instead of simply doing his time for his crime, a Black man, who is currently in jail for burglary, will likely be receiving $400,000 of taxpayer money because a sadistic cop sicced his K-9 on him as he surrendered. Kwamain Diondre O’Neal, now serving seven years for attempted burglary and fleeing or attempting to elude, has served notice that he seeks damages of $400,000 for the gruesome incident.

The savage mauling was captured on officer John Vanderlaan’s body camera as he sicced his K-9 on O’Neal while he was surrendering. As the officer’s K-9 tore the flesh from O’Neal’s body, the officer praised his dog, telling him “Good boy! Good Boy!”

As the body camera footage shows, O’Neal had his hands up, saying he was surrendering and begged Vanderlaan to keep the K-9 at bay. But the officer did not hold the dog back.

As the Palm Beach Post reports, an Internal Affairs investigation led the city to suspend Vanderlaan for 84 hours and require 40 hours of remedial training in dog-handling. The city transferred him out of the K-9 unit in December 2018.

Despite the suspension and the gruesome video, the city declined to file criminal charges against Vanderlaan. An investigator for the State Attorney’s Office Public Corruption Unit, Sgt. Jerry Lamm, on March 5, 2020, agreed, finding “no evidence to dispute the findings of the Riviera Beach Police Department.”

The video shows the officer and K-9 tracking down a young Black man who is sitting on top of an awning attached to a building near the intersection of Blue Heron Boulevard and Avenue O.

“Get on the ground!” Vanderlaan repeatedly yells at the Black man as the K-9 can be heard barking.

He tells the officer he wants to surrender but is afraid of the dog. “Just don’t bite me!” O’Neal is heard yelling. “Get the dog! Please just get the dog!”

As the video shows, O’Neal has his hands in the air while Vanderlaan is telling him to come down.

After about three minutes of the officer yelling for the suspect to come down and the suspect yelling for the officer to control the dog, Officer Vanderlaan reaches up through the awning and pulls O’Neal down by his legs.

As soon as the suspect hits the ground, the K-9 is on him. O’Neal can be heard screaming as the K-9 bites him repeatedly.

The man’s screams are hard to listen to as the K-9 rips the flesh from his arm.

As the dog continues to shred O’Neal’s left arm, the officer praises his dog, telling him “Good Boy!”

The pain of having his bicep torn from his bone was apparently so unbearable that O’Neal passed out and went completely limp as the dog continued to tear him to shreds.

Vanderlaan claimed that he may be faking it, as if it is possible to go limp as a K-9 tears into your flesh.

“Check for a pulse. Make sure he ain’t fakin’ it,” an officer can be heard saying on the video.

Instead of going to jail for the burglary he had just committed, O’Neal was transported to St. Mary’s Medical Center where he was treated for the “great bodily harm” inflicted on him by Vanderlaan’s K-9.

“The force used by the K9 Officer and Vanderlaan was clearly excessive,” attorney Zedrick Barber II said in a letter to the city on Feb. 7. “As a result of Vanderlaan, the K-9 and the city’s unlawful acts and indifference for Mr. O’Neal’s well-being, Mr. O’Neal suffered great bodily harm requiring immediate medical treatment and leaving irreparable and permanent scarring.”

After the incident, a supervisor ruled Vanderlaan’s handling of the K-9 “violated the department’s excessive use of countermeasures, resulting in injury,” according to a release from the city.

A statement from Vanderlaan later admitted the fault, noting that, “In hindsight, what I should’ve done was hold the dog and just wait for him to come down. I should’ve taken the initiative and told somebody to come over here and do it and I didn’t.”