A police officer suffered serious bite injuries and lasting health problems after being mauled by a Hennepin County deputy's K-9 last year as they pursued a suspect together, according to a rare excessive-force lawsuit filed this week pitting law enforcement officers against each other.
According to the federal lawsuit, former Champlin police officer Daniel Irish was attacked by a K-9 controlled by Hennepin County Sheriff's Deputy Keith McNamara, who did not warn others that he had released the dog as police tracked a suspect who had led them on a pursuit into Osseo in March 2022.
Irish's lawsuit includes images from both his and McNamara's body cameras showing an open-mouthed K-9 named Thor launch at Irish the moment he opens his squad car door.

Attorneys for Irish say that the location of the incident — a public cemetery near apartments and a special education center for young adults — was important because "any reasonable officer would have known that letting a K-9 off-leash without warning was objectively unreasonable and presented a danger to any number of innocent people."
"This could've been any other innocent person in the area that suffered these same injuries," said Andrew Noel, an attorney representing Irish, in an interview Wednesday. "Our mission here is to prevent anything like this from happening again."
A spokesperson for the Hennepin County Sheriff's Office said Wednesday that the office could not comment on pending litigation. McNamara has been employed by the sheriff's office since 2002, according to county records.
Irish now works for the Brooklyn Park Police Department, Noel said, and still suffers from the effects of C. difficile and other gastrointestinal ailments brought on by antibiotics taken to treat a deep skin infection caused by Thor's attack.
Noel said Irish's decision to file the lawsuit was not an easy one, but that it was brought out of broader public safety concerns.