Lawyer contacts Campbell regarding city’s police dog

October 23, 2012 at 12:00a.m.

By jeanne starmack

campbell

A lawyer has contacted Campbell’s law director regarding a 15-year-old girl’s being bitten by the city’s police dog.

Atty. Lynn Sfara Bruno wrote to law director Brian Macala advising him that she represents the girl after she was bitten Sept. 30 by Storm.

“Kindly submit this claim to the insurance company so that we may have an amicable resolution to this very important matter,” the letter reads.

Mayor Bill VanSuch said Monday that Sfara Bruno’s letter, along with a copy of a police report that details what led to the girl’s being bitten, was sent to the city’s insurance company.

The forwarded information indicates there is a “possible” claim. No specific amount of money is mentioned.

The police report says that Officer John Gulu, who handles Storm, was on patrol about 2 a.m. when he saw three juveniles on the corner of Bright Avenue and 15th Street.

Gulu left his patrol car to speak to the juveniles when a fourth person came from across the street behind him, the report says.

The dog, which was inside the car, saw the person approach and pushed open the car’s center console sliding door. He jumped out the driver’s side window. The man who was walking from behind Gulu quickly moved toward the juveniles, and the dog bit one, the girl, on her right arm.

Gulu quickly recalled the dog and put him back inside the car, locking the center sliding door, the report says.

He gave first aid to the girl’s arm, and the girl called her mother.

Sfara Bruno’s letter refers to the bite as a “severe personal injury.” The police report refers to it as a “bruise.”

In a November 2011 episode involving the dog, Storm took down an 8-year-old boy playing in his grandmother’s yard.

Storm and Gulu were off-duty, and Gulu had let him loose in a fenced enclosure in his neighborhood. Before he could re-leash the dog, Storm got over the fence and went after the boy. The boy was dragged to the ground but not bitten, police said.

The boy’s parents filed a lawsuit this month asking for $7,500.