A disturbing video has surfaced showing a Suffolk County police K-9 lunging at a dark-skinned bystander during a funeral procession in the Bronx, reigniting suspicions about racial targeting by police dogs, according to multiple reports.

The incident took place on July 31 as a line of police vehicles, including K-9 units, traveled through Parkchester for the funeral of Officer Didarul Islam, who was killed in a mass shooting in Midtown, New York City earlier that week. As mourners gathered and the procession came to a pause, a trained police dog escaped from a Long Island police SUV and bolted through the crowd.

“A handler should be able to control a police K-9 by voice command alone. Absolute incompetence,” one viewer commented, echoing concerns about the lack of control displayed in the footage.

The video showed the dog bypassing several people before leaping onto a Black man standing quietly on the sidewalk. It bit into his shirt and refused to release until two officers pulled it off.

The footage quickly went viral, sparking outrage and raising fresh questions about police K-9 programs.

“So they train their dogs to go after Black men *and* they’re incapable of controlling them? Racism and incompetence is a dangerous combination. That’s how people get killed when they’re just minding their own business,” one social media user commented.

While police dogs are classified as less lethal force, they are unique in that they make their own decisions and don’t always respond to commands, making them especially dangerous in chaotic settings.

In this case, it remains unclear whether the bystander sustained injuries, but the visual evidence has already reignited longstanding debates over the role of police dogs in communities of color.

According to research from the Indiana University of Pennsylvania: “The police canine has many valuable qualities including speed to outrun a fleeing suspect and extraordinary senses to track and locate drugs, explosives, dead bodies, and hiding suspects. However, the police canine‘s capacity to bite and seriously injure a suspect is of particular importance to understanding the police use of objectively reasonable force