Victim of police dog encounter believes dog involvement wasn’t necessary in 2019 arrest

Justin Soroka said it felt like people finally believed he was telling the truth when charges were laid against the Saskatoon police officer who was handling the police dog who injured Soroka’s leg during his arrest in 2019.

Soroka’s right leg still looks like it’s missing a part of the flesh and muscle in the area of his calf where the dog bit him. The skin is dry and Soroka said he had to learn to walk differently after the incident.

He doesn’t disagree with his conviction on multiple charges from that arrest three years ago. Soroka said he spent about 20 months in jail for convictions of possession of stolen property under $5,000, fraud under $5,000, theft under $5,000, dangerous driving and evading police, among others.

“I know that I broke into people’s houses and I was convicted of it, and I did my time,” Soroka said with emotion in his voice. “I deserved to go there. That was a place I needed to learn that if I continue to do bad things, I’m going to go away.”

But Soroka said he will always suffer for the choices he made, most significantly because of the injury he sustained during his arrest.

On Thursday, Saskatoon police revealed that two officers — both 13-year members — had been charged with aggravated assault for incidents involving police dogs chasing down and apprehending suspects.

Soroka believes there’s more to the story. He doesn’t dispute he was evading police leading up to his eventual capture and arrest. He was on drugs and driving a stolen vehicle when police first tried to pull him over. He’d also just used a fraudulent $20 bill for a purchase.

After a long chase involving multiple marked and unmarked police vehicles and the Saskatoon police plane, officers finally caught up to Soroka at a Saskatoon home.

“I can hear the police airplane, I can hear the cops, I can hear all the noise and it’s very, very intimidating,” he said.

Justin Soroka’s right leg was badly injured while he was being arrested by police in Saskatoon in 2019. (Libby Giesbrecht/650 CKOM)

Soroka remembered four officers on top of him, trying to subdue him. He felt terrified.

“I am completely down,” he said.

He doesn’t claim he wasn’t struggling — partly, he said, because he was struggling to breathe.

It was after he was already on the ground that Soroka claimed the Saskatoon police officer with the canine unit, Const. Cole Miklautsch, reached the situation.

According to his account, Soroka was trying to get to a physical position where he wasn’t “completely hurting” under the weight of the officers. That’s when he said he heard the canine officer say, “Quit resisting or I’m releasing my dog.”

“I remember saying a few choice words,” Soroka said. “Then all I remember is getting bit and that was it … I blacked out the second that that dog latched on to me.”

Soroka said he wouldn’t have been able to get away, pinned down by four officers, and felt commanding the dog to attack him at that point was excessive.

But he doesn’t want to see the dog involved face punishment. He said it wasn’t the police dog’s fault and the animal was just acting as it was trained to do.

Three years later, however, now engaged and expecting a son with his partner, Soroka said he wants to move on with the life he has worked hard to build. He and his partner are both proudly sober. He said moving on feels impossible because of his permanent disability.

“Somebody abused the power that they have and they abused it to the point where somebody was completely physically hurt and maimed and scarred for the rest of their lives,” Soroka said.

During a police media conference Thursday, Deputy Chief Mitch Yuzdepski said that, based on the amount of information he received about the incident, he thought the dogs “did as the dog was trained to do.”

In the 54 years the canine unit has been operating with Saskatoon police, Yuzdepski did not recall any other time when criminal charges have been laid against officers, though he said public complaints have been made against their dogs in the past.

The officer charged in connection with Soroka’s arrest is to appear in Saskatoon Provincial Court on Wednesday.