A For-Hire Vehicle (FHV) driver mauled by a police dog is suing a San Francisco suburb, alleging police used excessive force and violated his civil rights when he was stopped in December 2020 for missing car rental payments. Dashboard and body-cam footage obtained by the San Francisco Chronicle show an unresisting Ali Badr wailing in pain, his arm in the teeth of an aggressive San Ramon police dog for more than a minute as officers tried to cuff him.
Badr, a 42-year-old resident of Oakland, was a driver for Uber and Lyft when was forced to give up his own car due to declining income and agreed to rent a Toyota Camry from a company called CarMommy, according to his lawsuit. He said he fell behind on payments but told the company he’d pay them shortly – something that had happened previously – except this time, CarMommy CEO John Blomeke reported the car stolen, resulting in the license plate number to be listed in a state Department of Justice database shared among agencies.
Badr was driving to work at a gas station when the plate triggered one of the city’s license plate readers, alerting police of a vehicle reported stolen. Officers in a half-dozen cars pulled him over, guns drawn and the dog barking. Badr, who ended up being rushed to the hospital for surgery after the mauling, filed a federal lawsuit in Dec. against San Ramon, its police chief, and several officers. He is also suing CarMommy, Blomeke, and HyreCar Inc. of Los Angeles, which brokered the rental.
Source: SF Gate
