Lakeland officials have agreed to pay $125,000 to settle a federal civil-rights lawsuit accusing city police officers of excessive force after a police dog bit a woman who was holding her three-month-old granddaughter during a 2019 search for an unrelated suspect. City commissioners voted to settle the case, Kim Saddlers vs. City of Lakeland, Benjamin Blommel and Chad Landry, during a closed-door meeting on Monday.
According to the Miami Herald, the settlement resolves all claims against each defendant named in the suit, which Saddlers filed against the city and the two officers in September 2022. Court records reviewed in Saddlers v. City of Lakeland show that in March 2019, Saddlers and her family lived in an apartment complex in Lakeland when officers Blommel and Landry responded with Landry's police dog to search for a suspect who had no connection to Saddlers, her apartment, or her family members.
Lakeland officers Landry and Blommel had been called to help find a suspect who fled on foot during an attempted traffic stop, described as a 20- to 30-year-old Black male of medium build, per the Herald's reporting. The K-9 unit ended up searching an apartment complex on Gilmore Avenue, and before the search began, Landry warned nearby people that the canine unit would find and bite them if they did not identify themselves, according to the court document.
A Struggle Inside the Apartment
Officers ordered Iquan Isaac to retreat into his apartment, and he was later arrested for resisting arrest without violence, the Herald reported. Saddlers testified that she was up to change her three-month-old granddaughter when a struggle began inside the apartment, and police deployed the dog when one of Saddlers' sons attempted to intervene, per the same account.
Saddlers testified that she attempted to shield her infant granddaughter from the dog, which then bit the inner side of her left arm and pulled her toward the doorway until her son kicked the dog and it released her, according to the court filing. She received a jagged 10-inch bite requiring 30 sutures and made four hospital visits for treatment; the stitches ultimately had to be removed and reinserted because of an allergic reaction, the court document states.
The parties largely disputed what came next, with conflicting accounts over whether Saddlers was involved in the struggle with Blommel and whether Landry commanded the dog during the bite, court records show. Saddlers was also taken to jail on charges that were later dropped on November 2, 2021.
City's Response and the Lawsuit's Claims
Saddlers alleged false arrest, excessive force, battery and negligence in her suit against the city and the two officers. Palmer Davis said in an emailed statement that Saddlers was bitten while officers searched for a suspect in an unrelated crime, according to the Herald.
The Ledger attempted to reach Saddlers through her attorney, Matthew Farmer, for comment, per the Herald's reporting.
