LOS ANGELES – A woman sued the city of Hawthorne on Friday, claiming she suffered serious injuries when a police dog was wrongfully unleashed on her at a subway station in 2023.

Tyler Wilson’s lawsuit in Los Angeles Superior Court also names HPD officer Sarah Lewis, who is identified in the suit as the dog’s handler, as a defendant. Wilson’s lawsuit accuses him of civil rights violations, assault and negligence. It seeks unspecified compensatory damages from the city and Lewis, as well as punitive damages from Lewis.

A representative for Hawthorne did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the lawsuit.
The alleged dog attack occurred on April 1, 2023, at the Hawthorne/Lennox station on the C subway line.

Wilson was “peacefully standing” near the station’s street entrance when the sniffer dog, controlled by Lewis, “brutally attacked the plaintiff by repeatedly biting her on her left arm in multiple locations, causing serious and permanent injuries in this vicious and prolonged attack,” the lawsuit states.

Wilson has committed no crime, is not wanted for any wrongdoing and there are no outstanding warrants for her arrest, her lawsuit states. The lawsuit goes on to say that she was nevertheless “subjected to unreasonable and potentially deadly force in a manner that was not justified by any reasonable police objective.”

Wilson claims Lewis was hired and trained negligently and that it “should have been perfectly obvious to the City of Hawthorne and the Hawthorne Police Department that the defendant officers were dangerous, violent employees who had a propensity to use police dogs without good reason.”

The plaintiff also claims that her injuries were the result of “unconstitutional policies and practices of the City of Hawthorne and the Hawthorne Police Department.”

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