Calgary officer cleared after police dog mistakenly takes down nine-year-old girl

CALGARY – A nine-year-old girl who was attacked by a Calgary police dog while officers were chasing a suspected car thief was a case of a “confluence of errors,” Alberta’s police watchdog said in a report released Wednesday.

The Alberta Serious Incident Response Team said while the outcome was “serious and extremely unfortunate,” there were no reasonable grounds to believe that an offence was committed when the girl was attacked in February 2025.

In its formal report, ASIRT said a suspect in a stolen vehicle investigation was being chased on foot and refused to stop for police. A police service dog was then deployed to chase the suspect down.

The dog’s handler, who had been part of the Calgary police canine unit for 10 years, lost sight of the animal and could no longer issue commands.

ASIRT said the dog pursued the suspect into the backyard of a home. The suspect ran across the backyard to the other side of the home, but the dog continued straight through an opening in the back fence, across an alley and into a green space where the girl was walking home with her friend.

The dog handler had expected to hear “the offender struggling with the (dog) or screaming … and was surprised when he didn’t,” the report said. 

He then noticed an open gate at the back of the yard and heard officers in a helicopter transmit over the radio that the dog was in a field with some children. 

The report said the dog initially ran past the girl, but when she started running away in the opposite direction, it turned around and went after her, jumping up and biting her backpack and hair. 

The girl then fell on the ground and the dog bit her leg, the ASIRT report said. The dog let go after its handler arrived and called the animal off. 

The girl was helped to a police vehicle, where she waited for an ambulance.

“This is why I hate dogs,” the girl reportedly told one of the officers. 

She was then sent to the Alberta Children’s Hospital, where she was treated for the five puncture wounds on her thigh, “one of which extended deep to the muscle.”

ASIRT noted in its report that police dog handlers can face criminal charges if they deploy the animals in circumstances that do not abide by their standard training or guidelines.

“Criminal negligence causing bodily harm looks at whether there was a marked and substantial departure from the conduct of a reasonably prudent person. In this case, there is no evidence that this duty was breached to the requisite criminal standard,” the report said.

“There was a confluence of errors that contributed to the unfortunate outcome on this date.”

The report said the officer was not aware at the time he deployed the dog that there was an open green space where children were present behind the home the suspect was running toward. He also wasn’t aware that the backyard gate had been left open.

ASIRT concluded the girl was an unintended target and the officer acted reasonably in deploying the dog to apprehend a fleeing suspect. 

This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 20, 2026.

— By Daniela Germano in Edmonton