Family of San Jose man fatally shot by police, attacked by K-9 awarded $1M
Screen grabs of San Jose police and K-9 attacking David Tovar on Jan. 21, 2021.
SAN JOSE, Calif. - The family of a San Jose man under suspicion of several crimes and shot by police – and who was then attacked by a K-9 – will be paid $1 million by the city under a legal settlement.
The City Council on Tuesday approved the monetary award for David Tovar Jr.'s father and two children, the Mercury News first reported.
The settlement caps a civil lawsuit filed against San Jose for what happened to Tovar Jr., then 27, on Jan. 21, 2021.
At the time, police said they shot Tovar, who was unarmed at the time, as he was leaving the Villa Fairlane Apartment Complex because he was a "person of interest" in a homicide and shootings in Gilroy, wanted for weapons violations in San Jose, and a shooting at Galvan Park in Morgan Hill on Jan. 5.
In addition, then-Acting Police Chief David Tindall said that an officer saw Tovar reach into his waistband pulling out what the officer "believed to be the butt of a handgun," even though it later turned out to be a screwdriver.
Tindall said police gave Tovar "multiple commands to show his hands," but he did not comply.
Family of San Jose man fatally shot by police, attacked by K-9 awarded $1M
The family of a San Jose man under suspicion of several crimes and shot by police – and who was then attacked by a K-9 – will be paid $1 million by the city under a legal settlement.
WARNING GRAPHIC: San Jose police shoot David Tovar Jr.
Despite the allegations, Tovar's family said he had never actually been charged with those crimes.
Police shot Tovar 15 times, and they also sent a K-9 in to bite him.
An autopsy reviewed by KTVU shows that he was killed by multiple police gunshot wounds, but his body was full of dog-bite lacerations.
About four months after he died, Tovar's attorneys, Adante Pointer and Patrick Buelna, filed a wrongful death suit, saying that no matter what he was accused of, killing him was unnecessary and that his "last moments were a painful, agonizing and torturous death."
The Santa Clara County District Attorney cleared all the officers of any criminal wrongdoing in July 2022.
In September 2024, U.S. District Judge Edward Davila found the police dog bite – which lasted for 2 minutes and 40 seconds – was excessive.
"A K-9 attack of this duration, while the suspect lay wounded and nearly motionless, is without precedent," the judge wrote in his ruling.
Earlier this year, San Jose paid another man, who was accused of helping his girlfriend steal tequila, $1.6 million after a K-9 bit his neck for 1 minute, shredding his windpipe.
His lawyer said that was the second-highest K-9 award in the state of California.
A KTVU investigation from 2018 to 2022 revealed that San Jose police deploy K-9s more than any law enforcement agency in the Bay Area – 167 bites over a five-year period.