Riverside County Pays $600,000 to Parents Who Called for Help With Deceased Son for Dog Bite
Manuel and Alejandrina Pena sued the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department for dog bite to deceased son Rafael Pena
March 19, 2026, Newport Beach, CA
The County of Riverside has paid $600,000 to settle a lawsuit brought in federal court in Riverside to the parents of a Moreno Valley man who was bitten by a Sheriff’s Department K-9 when the parents called the Department for help with their mentally ill son.
On September 7, 2019 at approximately 10:00 p.m. Manuel Pena, called 9-1-1 because his son, Rafael Pena, age 33, was acting strangely due to a mental health condition and was in need of psychiatric care. Manuel Pena and his wife, Alejandrina, had called 9-1-1 in the past to help then with their son’s mental health problems, and the Sheriff’s Department usually brought a mental health worker with them who had always resolved their situation.
This time, however, when the Sheriff’s Department arrived they brought a police canine dog, who barked at and scared Rafael. Accordingly, when the police entered the Pena home Rafael retreated into a bedroom occupied by his young niece. Although Rafael was no threat to the young girl, the deputies insisted on extracting Rafael from the girl’s bedroom. They did so by literally ripping the bedroom door off of the hinges, and pulling Rafael from the bedroom.
When the deputies wrestled Rafael from the bedroom they fell to the floor, and Rafael held on to one of the Sergeants there while another deputy hit Rafael in his head with a baton.
The deputies then pulled Rafael’s arm out and held it for the police dog to bite it, causing Rafael extreme paid and deep bite wounds to his right arm.
When the father, Manuel Pena, yelled at the deputies, they arrested him and took him to the Sheriff’s Department station, but then released him with no charges.
Rafael Pena was hospitalized for a several weeks for his bite wounds, and when he was finally released the pain from the bite wounds persisted. Rafael’s pain medications expired, and he resorted to getting pain killer pills in Tijuana. Unfortunately, Rafael overdosed on the pain killer pills and passed away on February 26, 2020.
The Penas’ lawyer, Newport Beach Civil Rights * Police Misconduct Attorney Jerry L. Steering stated:
“Rather than treating Rafael Pena’s situation as a mental health issue, the deputies showed up with a barking police canine, and scared Rafael into running away from them and locking himself in his niece’s bedroom.
Then, rather than asking the young niece if she felt that she was in danger, the police exacerbated Rafael’s paranoid state by literally breaking the bedroom door down, literally ripping it off of the hinges, and pulling him out of the bedroom and wrestling him to the floor.
When Rafael held on to one of the deputies’ vest, they held his right arm out and had the canine bite his arm for a minute and one-half; severely injuring Rafael’s arm. This was pure torture for a situation that the deputies created by starting out their response to a mental health call with a barking police dog. They caused this mess and the Pena’s were subjected to watching their mentally ill son being torturing and disfigured.”
“Riverside County Deputy Sheriffs need better training on dealing with persons experiencing a mental health crisis. They provoked paranoid reaction out of a mentally ill man and then tortured him for the foreseeable reaction to their provocation.”
Under California state law, Manuel and Alejandrina Pena were Rafael Pena’s Successor In Interest, and were allowed to sue the County for the pre-death pain and suffering that their son, Rafael, endured from the dog bite”.
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