Wichita PR video of police dog mauling junkyard burglary suspect is sickening | Opinion
I went over to Wichita City Hall for Mayor Lily Wu’s weekly media briefing Thursday, to ask a couple of questions about the paid parking taking effect Tuesday downtown.
I left feeling sick to my stomach.
Not because of paid parking.
What was nauseating and infuriating was a PR video played at the event by the Wichita Police Department.
It shows officers sending in their police dog to maul a small-time burglary suspect who’d broken into an outdoor junkyard surrounding a pawn shop in South Wichita.
I’m sure I’ll hear from empathy-challenged individuals, who will call me a bleeding heart liberal for being disgusted by this, and who’ll say that the suspect got what was coming to him.
All I can say is watch the video at the top of this story and make your own judgment, guided by your own conscience.
You can hear the suspect screaming in pain as the dog tears into his flesh. I couldn’t really make out what he was screaming, because of the pulse-pounding techno music the city staff added to the video to heighten the excitement of the moment.
And in case you missed it the first time, they showed that same clip twice in the one-minute, 53-second video.
After the dog was called off, the man could barely walk. Instead of rendering first aid, we see the officers pulling him along in cuffs, limping and hopping on one foot, as they put him in the back of a police car.
“The suspect was taken to a local hospital for medical care, but was later booked for burglary and theft,” the narrator intones at the end. “This highlights how regardless of the conditions (it was raining at the time), our officers are committed to protecting and serving the community. To all the officers involved, well done.”
The department’s self-congratulation was echoed (per usual) by the head cheerleader.
“Thank you for the hard work of all of our public safety officers and first responders for everything they do for our community every day,” said the mayor, making me wonder if we’d just watched the same video.
There was no indication the suspect represented a danger to anyone. He tried to escape, before hiding out in a junkpile that shouldn’t even be there, until the police got frustrated enough looking for him to bring in a dog to do the dirty work.
The danger was clearly exacerbated by conditions surrounding the Easy Money Pawn Shop, a South Oliver eyesore that frankly should have been cleaned up or closed down decades ago.
There are two other pawn shops in the same block, and they seem to be able to conduct their businesses without looking like Sanford and Son Salvage after a tornado.
I’d have a lot more respect for the city if they’d send in Code Enforcement to make Easy Money get rid of the rustbucket cars and random detritus that they’ve been piling up out there for years behind their barbed-wire-topped chain-link fence.
The video was installment No. 71 of the WPD’s ongoing social media series of videos called “Well Done Wednesday,” posted on X and Facebook each week to highlight the department’s best work.
It usually does. The previous week’s video focused on the ICT-1 team patiently de-escalating and defusing a potentially deadly situation with an armed and disturbed individual, and getting him brought in for mental-health treatment. That was police work well done.
Siccing a German Shepherd on a man suspected of a minor property crime was not well done. Neither was making a surreal and vulgar video bragging about it.
Do better, Wichita Police Department.
This story was originally published June 27, 2025 at 5:12 AM.
