INEXCUSABLE

Cops Sicced Dog on Uber Driver After False Theft Report, Lawsuit Alleges

Ali Badr is suing the city of San Ramon and its police department after the owner of a car he had rented for gig work reported it stolen following a missed payment.

An Uber driver who was attacked by a police dog after the car he was renting was reported stolen is suing the city of San Ramon and its police department, among others. A video of the December 2020 mauling, which left Ali Badr with permanent, life-altering injuries, was obtained by the San Francisco Chronicle and published on Monday. Badr, a 42-year-old North African immigrant, had rented a car through a company catering to gig workers. In a federal lawsuit filed last month, he said the car’s owner reported the vehicle stolen after he was a few days late on a rental payment. During the subsequent police stop, he was barefoot, unarmed, and not resisting. The dog was turned loose on him regardless, and sank its teeth into Badr’s arm, jerking its head as officers tried to handcuff him, the lawsuit says. Also named as defendants in the suit are San Ramon’s police chief, a K-9 handler, six other officers, the car’s owner, and several companies involved in the rental process. “The beginning of the process is this calling in of a stolen car that everybody knew wasn’t stolen,” Matthew Haley, Badr’s attorney, told the Chronicle. The video footage “just speaks for itself,” he added. “It was absolutely, positively uncalled for.”