Invisible Institute

Every year in the United States, police dogs injure thousands of people, biting and maiming bystanders, officers and people suspected of petty crimes. Dogs have served as instruments of violence in incidents dating back to the days of slavery, and as recently as the Black Lives Matter protests. At the same time, police departments love to show off their dogs—at parades or on Twitter, visiting classrooms or posing with a Girl Scout troop. Some K-9s even have their own adorable Instagram accounts.

In our year-long investigation with The Marshall Project, AL.com and the IndyStar, we identified and tracked individual cases, pulling data across the country to compile more than 150 severe incidents. We found that most bite victims were suspected of low-level, non-violent crimes. Almost none of them were armed. The Marshall Project’s nationwide tracker allows readers to sort incidents by state, read descriptions of the attacks and view videos of some of them.

Days after publication of the first installment of “Mauled,” the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department announced revisions in its use of police dogs. The series also prompted a national police think tank to begin work on guidelines for K-9 units throughout the country. The Massachusetts Legislature passed a police-reform bill that included limits on the use of dogs. The head of the Washington State Legislature’s Public Safety Committee used our reporting when crafting a reform bill aimed at preventing the use of police dogs to bite people. And in Baton Rouge, the mayor directed the police chief to stop using dogs on teenage suspects. 

Contributors to the series include Invisible Institute reporters Andrew Fan, Dana Brozost-Kelleher and Ellen Glover, with editorial support from Alison Flowers; Abbie VanSickle as the lead reporter for The Marshall Project, with Manuel Torres and Leslie Eaton serving as the main editors; Challen Stephens and reporters and editors at AL.com; and Ryan Martin and editors at IndyStar.

“Mauled” also won the Katharine Graham Award for Courage and Accountability from the White House Correspondents’ Association and was a finalist for the Goldsmith Prize for Investigative Reporting.