On July 8, 2018, Alabama police sat back and watched as their K-9 dog brutally bit 51-year-old Joseph Pettaway to death. But four years later, the judge on Pettaway’s case is refusing to release the bodycam footage to the public. Why?
What happened to Pettaway was so horrendous that lawyers believe releasing the video could “jeopardize police safety” and prompt “civil unrest.”
After accusing Pettaway of being a burglar entering his own mother’s home, the dog’s handler watched Pettaway scream and bleed out as it attacked him for almost two minutes straight. “Did ya’ get a bite?” another officer asked the handler later. He laughed. “Sure did.”
Police left Pettaway there on the pavement bleeding – he was dead by the time he finally reached the hospital. And unfortunately, Pettaway isn’t the only one who’s been attacked this way.
Medical experts say police dog bites are like shark attacks, sending about 3,600 people to the ER every year – most of them Black men.
“They stood up there and let the dog kill him,” Pettaway’s mom said. “He was somebody’s son, somebody’s brother, somebody’s uncle. He wasn’t just a piece of meat.”
From police dogs to gunshots, state violence has always attacked our people – and we have always fought back! Whether they want us to see the truth or not, that will never change.