The parents of a five-year-old say they were appalled by the Manitoba’s police reluctance to investigate an incident where their son was terribly bitten by a Winnipeg police dog. The attack left the child requiring several stitches to his lip in the hospital.
Femi and Omolara Aloba say they’re disappointed the Independent Investigation Unit failed to contact the family or investigate the injury suffered by their son
“This saddens my heart right now and I feel that we are probably being treated in a certain way,” said Femi Aloba.
“You don’t just sweep things under the carpet. You don’t just downplay things. You’re talking about a five-year-old. A toddler. He was in a safe spot … in his school.”
Their son was bitten by the police dog during a visit by the Winnipeg Police Service’s K-9 unit to Samuel Burland School in Winnipeg’s South St. Vital neighbourhood.
An investigator from the unit informed CBC News that it was determined it did not fall within the “serious injury classification” because the child was taken to hospital but not admitted.
She said someone from the school and a paramedic each gave her versions of what happened.
In both versions, the dog then bit the child.
In a statement issued on the day of the incident, the principal, Ross Cathers, said “the student was provided with the necessary medical care on-site” and transported to hospital as “an additional precaution.”
“My son was so weak … because he couldn’t eat anything,” Omolara Aloba said.
Then the boy was forced to wait another hour. They say the doctor told them because of nature of the injuries a plastic surgeon would have to do the stitching.
Just over a week later, the parents say their son is now doing better, but they see scars that run deeper than those on his lips.
“My child is scared,” said the boy’s mom.
She says now every night when she takes him to bed he wants her to sleep in the bed with him.
“He has never said that before. He has been sleeping on his own since he was a year old. He says that to me every night since the incident happened,” she said.
She said he also asks her repeatedly, “Mommy, why did the dog bite me?”
The parents said they had a “scare” last Saturday as the family ate.
The boy held his mouth and his throat and appeared as if he was choking or trying to vomit.
They say they tried to get him to tell them what was wrong — because he was only having spaghetti and vegetables — but for about 30 minutes he continued that way.
“We were really terrified because that was not [my son],” said Femi Aloba.
“That has never happened before. We’ve never had to take him to the hospital in a rush. He doesn’t have any allergies and he didn’t eat anything different from what he’s used to eating.”
While it does include “cuts or lacerations,” for example, it goes on to say “that require admission to a hospital on an in-patient basis.”
It also includes “the loss of any part of the body.”
“How serious can it get?” asked Omolara Aloba.
“You don’t think that it’s important to reach out to the family? Do you know how difficult and how painful this has been for us? Each time I keep thinking about it, I am just happy and we are glad that it wasn’t worse,” he said.
The father also said “there should be a level of responsibility from the organization itself,” which would prompt it to investigate the matter.
“If it were to be their own child, would they have said the same thing? Wouldn’t they have wanted to get an explanation of what happened, how it happened and what the organization would do to prevent it in the future?”
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