HALF MOON BAY — A man who was bitten by a police dog while trying to rescue a friend’s cat at a construction site two years ago was awarded $1.1 million Tuesday by a federal civil jury, which ruled that San Mateo County Sheriff’s deputies used excessive force in deploying the animal.

“This verdict sends a strong message to law enforcement that a police canine is a severe use of force that should be reserved for serious crimes, where officers are truly in immediate danger,” plaintiff attorney Michael Haddad said in a statement. “The community will not tolerate reckless use of a police canine like we saw here.”

The Sheriff’s Office on Wednesday continued to back its deputies.

“While we certainly respect the judicial system, we are very disappointed in the final result,” the agency said in a statement to this news organization. “Sheriff (Carlos) Bolanos supports the actions of the involved deputies.”

The jury award was issued after two days of deliberations over the case of 64-year-old Richard Earl May Jr., who entered a fenced construction site near Bloom Lane the night of New Year’s Day 2015 to help his 73-year-old friend retrieve her cat Domino. The feline was heard meowing from inside a building on the grounds, and they could find neither security guards on site nor a reachable phone number.

May reportedly trespassed onto the site and triggered a security alarm, which summoned deputies. May alleged in his lawsuit that Deputy Chris Laughlin and two other deputies gave Riggs commands and he first sniffed at May then attacked him after more commands. The police dog bit May’s legs, causing injuries that Haddad said took over a year to heal.

But the Sheriff’s Office said the plaintiff’s characterization did not tell the whole story, noting that the deputies were responding to a report of an active commercial burglary with two to three suspects.

“They were then confronted by a suspect who moved toward the shadows and refused to comply with multiple commands to get on the ground,” the Sheriff’s Office said. “A deputy then used non-lethal force to subdue the suspect, deploying a highly trained K-9. The suspect was treated for injuries from the K-9 and released.”

The agency added: “We continue to believe that the deputies’ actions at the scene were reasonable based on the information they had and the circumstances they were facing.”

May was detained and questioned for trespassing on the property, but was never charged with a crime. His lawsuit alleged that deputies photographed May with a sticker of a German Shepherd captioned “I met Riggs,” the name of the police dog.

According to the verdict filing, the jury agreed that the police actions constituted both excessive force and negligence. It awarded May $1 million in compensatory damages for his injuries and $100,000 in punitive damages. Laughlin and San Mateo County were listed as defendants in court records.

Domino the cat was successfully rescued amid all the commotion of that day.