Police dog Maverick retires. Could he be among last of his kind in Washington state?
He had 166 captures in a nearly nine-year career as a Puyallup officer, working the streets of Tacoma and elsewhere in the region when called on. He tracked down all kinds of fleeing and hiding perpetrators: robbers, burglars, gun runners and more.
And he ran into danger ahead of his two-legged partners in the Pierce County Metro K9 Unit — not calculating the risks, no thought in the back of his mind about going home to spouse and kids — giving his team a less-lethal option than a service pistol.
Now Maverick the police dog will spend K9 Veterans Day this weekend in retirement, not long after turning 10. The cop who trained him and handled him all these years, Puyallup Sgt. Kevin Karuzas, bought Maverick from the city last month and brought him home for good.
No more German Shepherd in his patrol vehicle where the back seat should be. No more canine car alarm when a stranger would get too close. “The barking used to drive me nuts,” Karuzas said, “ I didn’t think I’d miss it. But now I do.”
He paid the bargain price of $1 for his first and only police dog, as if Maverick were a piece of surplus equipment — “which I guess he is, in a way,” Karuzas told me in a recent interview, laughing.
A question emerged in Washington this year about whether other police dogs may be sent into retirement. Unlike Maverick, however, they could be sidelined prematurely in their prime service years, or at least have their job descriptions dramatically changed.
The Legislature is considering a bill that proposed banning the use of unleashed K-9 animals to arrest or apprehend criminal suspects. It’s since been amended to eliminate an outright ban — for now. Instead, House Bill 1054 would convene a work group to develop a model policy for the training and use of canine teams.
Police dogs are just one facet of the bill. Its sponsor, Rep. Jesse Johnson, D-Federal Way, crafted a wide-ranging package to reform police tactics, born from the outcry after last year’s police-involved deaths of George Floyd in Minnesota and Manny Ellis in Tacoma.
The bill passed the House and awaits Senate action. Some parts are sensible. Prohibiting or limiting the use of tools such as chokeholds, no-knock warrants and military gear is an overdue national discussion with profound racial-justice implications.
But sweeping up police dogs in the restrictions seems like too much, too soon, and could prove counterproductive. Preventing a highly trained canine from running off leash not only puts cops in extra jeopardy, it increases the odds they may use their hands, knees or sidearms on a suspect.
“You can’t recall a bullet,” said Rep. Gina Mosbrucker, R-Goldendale, during debate before the bill’s House passage Feb. 27. “You can recall a trained K9 dog, and it gives us a less-lethal use of force option.”
Mosbrucker offered the amendment to study police dog use, which won support from Johnson and other majority Democrats. The work group would examine proposals such as a standardized training curriculum, including the history of race and police dog deployment; strategies for reducing dog bites; and possible prohibited uses, such as crowd control.
A ban is unthinkable for Karuzas, 42, a Puyallup cop for nearly 14 years. A dog, he said, “is the one tool we have that can’t be taken away and used against police officers.
“For me, that’s huge. If you see a suspect running away from you and you tell me I can’t directly deploy my dog off lead, it gives the suspect a chance to run and hide and possibly ambush us. He has a bigger advantage against us.”
At a time when “de-escalation” is a buzzword among reform advocates, police dogs have long served that purpose. A handler’s warning, coupled with a canine’s no-nonsense growl, are often enough to persuade a suspect to surrender, Karuzas said.
Not always, of course. Out of Maverick’s 166 captures, 77 involved a bite or some other “contact,” Karuzas said.
When I asked him to share one capture that stands out in Maverick’s career, Karuzas settled on a Tacoma home invasion robbery a few years ago. Maverick sniffed out two suspects hiding under a deck. After a tussle and a bite on one man’s leg, they were taken into custody, multiple guns having been found in their possession.
“I firmly believe that if Maverick hadn’t been with us that day, there would have been a gun battle,” Karuzas said.
Police dogs sometimes inflict serious injuries on suspects, and on rare occasions have harmed bystanders. A Seattle Times investigation in 2013 found at least 17 people over five years claimed to have been mistakenly attacked by police dogs, leading to nearly $1 million in legal damages. Two of those dogs worked in Pierce County.
Canines are much like human officers in that some aren’t suited for the work and wash out early, some need additional training, and some are dangerous and must be permanently removed from duty.
But canines are also like human officers in that most serve honorably. Some even make the ultimate sacrifice — dogs like 2 ½-year-old Ronja, Tacoma’s youngest K9 member, killed last summer as police exchanged gunfire with a homicide suspect.
So I will mark K9 Veterans Day this weekend with warm thoughts for Washington’s four-legged heroes, while acknowledging that experts can learn to do this work even better and build strong public trust.
As for Maverick, he deserves to live out his years at the Karuzas house with no greater care than where to lie down for his next nap.
Reach News Tribune editorial page editor Matt Misterek at matt.misterek@thenewstribune.com
This story was originally published March 12, 2021 at 3:00 PM.