The St. Paul City Council will vote next week on a $75,000 settlement with a bystander who was bitten by a police dog over the summer.

Police said they were responding to a weapons call in July when a K-9 bit Glenn Slaughter, 34, who was not involved in the incident. Slaughter was leaving home in Dayton’s Bluff, heading to work.

The case, which came on the heels of other high-profile K-9 bites in St. Paul, led the mayor and police chief to announce that the city’s police dogs would be used more sparingly amid “significant changes.” An external audit of the K-9 unit remains underway.

Slaughter did not file a lawsuit. The settlement agreement was made public Thursday.

“The city, to their credit, wanted to get in front of this case,” said Andrew Noel, an attorney who represented Slaughter with attorney Robert Bennett. “They’re trying to move on from these K-9 issues that they’ve been having.”

St. Paul City Attorney Lyndsey Olson said in a Thursday statement that the city “wishes Mr. Slaughter well and takes full responsibility for the pain he endured from this regrettable incident. An early settlement spares the Slaughter family the additional stress and costs of litigation.”

Noel and Bennett also represented two people who received settlements from St. Paul after K-9s bit them — Desiree Collins reached a $520,000 settlement in September and the City Council approved a record $2 million settlement to Frank Baker in 2017.

In June 2016, Baker was mistaken for a suspect whom police were seeking and he was bitten by a K-9. He was hospitalized for two weeks.

In September 2017, as a K-9 was searching for a male burglary suspect, Collins was taking out garbage behind her home. The police dog knocked Collins to the ground and clamped down on her. Officers issued 10 “release” commands to the dog and the handler had to physically remove the K-9 from Collins, according to her lawsuit.

When Slaughter was injured, K-9 Suttree did not heed Officer Mark Ross’ commands to stop and had to be physically removed from Slaughter, which took about 20 seconds, according to police.

“This was another situation, unfortunately, where the dog wouldn’t let go on a verbal command,” Noel said.

Police said at the time that Suttree’s collar broke when he was about 10 feet away from Slaughter. The dog ran toward the man and bit him on the right forearm.

It “looked like the collar was not attached properly,” Noel said Thursday. “… It was a dog that, frankly, seemed to get loose because of the collar issue, not because of the handler.”

Related Articles Minneapolis man pleads guilty to torching University Avenue business during May unrest

Charges: 17-year-old shot 15-year-old in face during marijuana deal in St. Paul

Man, 38, dies of apparent natural causes at Ramsey County jail

St. Paul district to wait on reopening schools, citing lack of staff

Sept. 30 is last day for public comment on Pigs Eye Lake makeover Suttree is no longer with the K-9 unit and Ross was reassigned from the unit.

Slaughter still has some scars, according to Noel.

He was working an overnight shift, but he left that job because “the thing that kind of stuck with him was he didn’t really want to leave his house at those hours anymore,” Noel said.