She Went Out For A Walk. Then Drogo The Police Dog Charged.
Feature Filed 10.15.2020 6:00 a.m.
Late one night in December 2018, Ayanna Brooks and her Siberian husky, Neptune, took a stroll with her boyfriend after his bartending shift. On a patch of grass near a CVS, they let Neptune roam off-leash. Then the sound of sirens filled the air. Police were chasing several men who had bolted from a stolen car.
It was a rare enough sight in their gentrifying Washington, D.C., neighborhood that Brooks, who was 27 and worked in real estate, recorded video for an Instagram story. “Yo, this is so unexpected!” she said. Wanting to avoid any police drama, she and her boyfriend, Joseph Burroughs, who are both Black, put Neptune back on his leash and turned to head home.
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She went out for a walk. Then she encountered a police dog.
But before they could get too far, a police car from nearby Takoma Park, Maryland, pulled up. Out hopped a police dog, which Brooks immediately noticed was “butt naked”—no leash, no harness. She heard the handler shout, “Drogo, get down!” Then she saw the dog disobey the order and trot around the car. She knew from training Neptune that this was a bad sign, and assumed this was the kind of dog capable of serious harm.
She felt Neptune tug her as an officer pushed her out of the way. She lost her footing and fell against a hedge. As she slid to the ground, she saw the K-9 bolt in a wide arc—he was
