A Colorado family says it is carrying nearly $300,000 in medical debt two years after a police K-9 escaped from a neighboring property, jumped a fence, and attacked their 2-year-old daughter during her birthday party.
Nick Dean was also badly injured while trying to save his daughter, Lily, from Ragnar, a Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office K-9 assigned to Deputy Zachary Oliver. The August 2024 attack sent both father and daughter to the hospital.
At the time, the sheriff’s office said it was “devastated” by what happened and publicly pledged that it was “fully committed to supporting the family during their recovery.”
Nearly two years later, Dean told CBS Colorado that the family has received no help from the sheriff’s office. The agency declined to provide the station with a statement for its latest report.
Next Door
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The Dean family was celebrating Lily and her twin brother’s second birthday in the fenced backyard of their Castle Rock home on Aug. 11, 2024.
“It was a perfect day, just celebrating our babies,” Dean told CBS Colorado.
Ragnar lived next door with Oliver, his handler. According to the sheriff’s office’s account shortly after the attack, Ragnar escaped his outdoor enclosure at about 4 p.m., cleared the 5-foot fence separating the properties, and entered the Deans’ yard.
Dean told CBS that he saw Ragnar coming over the fence and yelled at the dog. By the time he reached the yard from an upper porch, Ragnar had attacked Lily and dragged her across the grass.
Dean and two other men tried to stop him.
“We were losing,” Dean said.
His sister, Rachel DeWolf, recalled being unable to pull Lily away because the child was still in Ragnar’s mouth. Dean said that while wrestling with the dog, he could hear his daughter’s femur cracking.
Eventually, Oliver became aware that Ragnar had escaped and regained control of him, according to the sheriff’s office.
Lily and her father were both taken to a hospital.
The Promise
The sheriff’s office did not minimize the incident in its initial public response.
Ragnar was placed under a mandatory 10-day quarantine, and Oliver was put on administrative leave while the Castle Rock Police Department investigated and the sheriff’s office conducted its own review.
The agency also said Ragnar’s future as a working K-9 was under review.
Then came its promise to the family.
“We are devastated by this incident and are fully committed to supporting the family during their recovery,” the sheriff’s office said.
Recovery turned out to be a lengthy proposition.
Dean now says his injuries have left him unable to participate in many of the things he previously did as a father.
“I love being their dad. But today, I’m not able to participate in a lot of things that I used to,” he told CBS Colorado.
A fundraiser organized by Dean says his injuries continue to affect the family’s life and that ongoing treatment has contributed to medical debt approaching $300,000.
And according to Dean, the support the sheriff’s office promised publicly in 2024 never came.
“We’ve received no help from Jeffco Sheriff’s Department,” he told CBS.
CBS Colorado asked the sheriff’s office about the family’s situation for its August 2026 report. The agency said it had no statement to contribute.
Whose Duty?
The case did not simply disappear after the attack.
Oliver was criminally prosecuted over Ragnar’s actions, but a six-person Douglas County jury found him not guilty in July 2025 on misdemeanor dangerous-dog charges.
The argument behind that result became nearly as contentious as the attack itself.
According to 23rd Judicial District Attorney George Brauchler, Oliver’s defense argued that he was performing his official duties when Ragnar escaped because Oliver was inside cleaning urine from the dog’s kennel.
Colorado law contains protections involving law-enforcement K-9s acting in the performance of official duties. The defense maintained that caring for Ragnar was part of Oliver’s job.
Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office employees testified in support of that position, according to Brauchler.
The district attorney was not persuaded.
Brauchler said after the verdict that he was unaware of another sheriff’s office interpreting the law that way and sharply criticized the department’s position.
The family’s civil attorney at the time, Dagny Van Der Jagt, also pointed to an awkward difference between how the incident had initially been described and the position taken during the criminal case.
She told CBS that the sheriff’s office initially characterized Oliver as off duty and publicly said it would take care of the family. During the case, she said, the position became that his responsibilities for Ragnar meant he was effectively performing his duties.
For Van Der Jagt, that raised another question: if the K-9 and his handler were acting in an official capacity, what did that mean for the department’s responsibility for what Ragnar did?
At the time, she said she was working on a potential civil lawsuit for the family.
No Easy Exit
A lawsuit ultimately did not provide the Deans with the answer.
The family told CBS Colorado this month that it considered civil litigation but has been unable to find an attorney willing to take the case on a contingency basis. The Deans say they do not want to take on additional debt trying to pursue it themselves.
“At every turn, we were told that there’s not a way to be restored. There’s not a way to win,” Dean said.
The family has instead turned to the public for help paying the medical expenses.
The fundraiser describes nearly $300,000 in medical debt and continuing treatment. Dean said the goal is to prevent that financial burden from being passed along to the rest of the family.
The sheriff’s office’s original commitment to support the Deans remains part of the public record.
So does the family’s account of what followed.
Last Shift
Ragnar’s career with the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office eventually came to an end as well.
Before the attack, Ragnar had been selected as Oliver’s new partner after Oliver’s previous K-9, Graffit, was shot and killed in the line of duty in February 2023.
Oliver and another deputy traveled to California to select new dogs. Oliver chose Ragnar, then a roughly 2½-year-old Belgian Malinois, and the pair completed weeks of training before returning to Colorado, according to a 2023 Denver7 profile.
After Oliver’s acquittal in 2025, the sheriff’s office said its internal bite review remained unfinished because it had been waiting for the criminal case to conclude. Ragnar was still with Oliver but was not permitted out of the vehicle for official work.
Oliver was also resigning from the sheriff’s office and preparing to move out of state.
Sheriff’s office spokeswoman Karlyn Tilley told CBS at the time that Ragnar belonged to the department and Oliver would not be allowed to take him.
The agency had not yet decided what would ultimately happen to Ragnar.
One thing, however, had been decided.
“He will not be a working dog for us anymore,” Tilley said.