Editor’s note: Photographs in this story may be disturbing to some readers.
There are new developments in the story first brought to you in June by A News Café regarding Ryder Klenk, the Shasta County teen who survived a horrific dog-mauling attack on Sept. 3, 2021.
Now, Klenk’s story has caught the attention of a high-profile Bay Area civil rights law firm. The Law Offices of John L. Burris has agreed to represent Klenk in a lawsuit known as Klenk v. City of Etna et al. The City of Etna, Nathan Mendes, Brett Letendre and California Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control are listed as defendants in the case. The case was filed on Aug. 1. The presiding judge is Dennis M. Cota, and the nature of the suit is listed as civil rights.
The attack
Klenk, the dog-mauling victim, was 18 at the time of the attack. When Taylor Merrick, Klenk’s friend, went to check on Klenk after he’d not returned home, Merrick found his friend severely injured, bloodied and incoherent, sprawled in the field of the Crossroads Church property, located in rural Bella Vista, east of Redding. Klenk was the victim of a violent mauling by an aggressive dog. The attack has permanently scarred Klenk, both physically and emotionally. Klenk and his family suffered compounded trauma, first because of the dog mauling, and second because North State law enforcement expressed little interest in thoroughly investigating the case and seeking justice for Klenk.
The field at Crossroads Baptist Church where Taylor Merrick found his friend Ryder Klenk. Photograph by Shawn Schwaller.
An emergency room physician who treated Klenk at Mercy Medical Center after the teenager was transported to the hospital by ambulance wrote in the medical report that Klenk had been attacked by a law enforcement K9.
“I was told that the dogs were in training as law enforcement dogs and were vaccinated against rabies,” the doctor wrote.
Excerpt of a Mercy Medical Center physician’s report written about Klenk’s condition and injuries. Report courtesy of Megan Wion.
Therefore, based upon the doctor’s information that the dog that attacked Klenk was a law-enforcement K-9, coupled with the doctor’s assumption that law enforcement K-9s have received rabies vaccinations, medical staff ceased Klenk’s rabies treatments.
The Shasta County Sheriff’s office refused to release to A News Café the incident report about the violent attack involving Klenk.
In January, the sheriff’s office reopened the case and assigned it to its major crimes unit. In April the case was closed a second time, according to the sheriff’s department employee who deals with public records requests.
Megan Wion, Klenk’s mother, provided A News Cafe with photocopies of law enforcement and medical reports related to the dog-mauling.
Photographs of Ryder Klenk after he was released from Mercy Medical Center. Photographs by Megan Wion.
Photographs of Ryder Klenk after he was released from Mercy Medical Center. Photographs by Megan Wion.
Photographs of Ryder Klenk after he was released from Mercy Medical Center. Photographs by Megan Wion.
Justice beyond Shasta County
Klenk will be represented by James Cook, a lawyer who works for John L. Burris’s firm. Cook recently represented tenants of the Ghost Ship apartment building in Oakland that was destroyed by a deadly fire.
Screenshot of James Cooks’ The Law Offices of John L. Burris webpage.
Wion first contacted the law firm in January. Five months later Wion reached out to the firm again, but this time she provided A News Café’s dog-mauling story about the attack her son suffered nearly a year ago.
During a short phone conversation with A News Café, Cook said A News Café’s story about Klenk played a key role in the firm’s willingness to represent him.
A mother’s fight for justice
Megan Wion and son Ryder Klenk in happier times, before the dog-mauling that permanently scarred Klenk, both physically and emotionally. Photograph courtesy of Megan Wion.
Six months after the attack, Wion, in a desperate search for justice, reached out to A News Café to help research and shed light on what happened to her son. This was after local area law enforcement agencies, including the Shasta County Sheriff’s Office – the lead agency responsible for investigating the case – failed to respond to Wion on numerous occasions. Although Wion had provided the sheriff’s department with copious records, photos and other material and information related to the assault upon Klenk, she was told by sheriff’s department staff that they could not help her or her son any further. After that, Wion’s calls to the sheriff’s department were not returned.
Likewise, the Shasta County District Attorney’s office also failed to investigate the dog-mauling case. Wion additionally spoke with Etna Police Chief Josh Short — Mendes’ employer — on several occasions to report Mendes’ suspicious conduct, but again, to no avail.
The backstory
Klenk had been dropped off at the church to pick up his truck after hanging out with friends at Lake Shasta.
Evidence suggested that Klenk was possibly attacked by a K9, or other dogs owned by prominent law enforcement official, Nathan Mendes, whose home is adjacent to the church property. At the time of the dog mauling, Mendes was an investigator with the Etna Police Department, and had previously worked as a special agent with the California Department of Justice and as a sheriff’s deputy in Lassen and Siskiyou counties. It is unknown why Mendes had K9s on his property, as he is not listed anywhere as being a K9 handler.
Mendes’ troubled past as a law enforcement official includes two separate civil suits accusing him of using excessive force while employed as a sheriff’s deputy in Lassen County and Siskiyou County. One of the cases involved a wrongful death lawsuit where Mendes fired his weapon more than 30 times at an individual.
As covered by A News Café, Mendes is good friends with local alt-right extremist Carlos Zapata. Mendes owns a jiu-jitsu studio formerly co-owned by Zapata. The two co-owned a strip club in Tampa up until roughly one year ago. Mendes and Zapata have taught self-defense courses together for local area law enforcement officers and employees.
The business logo for Zapata Jiu-Jitsu; Bottom Left: Carlos Zapata and Nathan Mendes posing in their jiu-jitsu outfits; Bottom Right: Advertisements for “women’s self-defense seminar” that features Carlos Zapata and Nathan Mendes. Source: Combat Base Shasta-Mendes Jiu-Jitsu.
Nathan Mendes (left) and Carlos Zapata (right) in their Marine Corps uniforms.
In other new developments unearthed since A News Café first covered the dog mauling suffered by Klenk, Mendes obtained a security guard license from the state of California on June 30, 2021. He also obtained an exposed firearm permit on June 10, 2022. In February of 2022, someone used the address of Mendes’ Bella Vista home to form a company known as North State Group LLC. According to online information, North State Group LLC is a freight shipping broker.
Mendes and his friend Brett Letendre, an agent with Alcoholic Beverage Control, admitted to approaching Merrick and Klenk on the night of the attack. Merrick said Mendes and Letendre attempted to get Klenk to leave the scene; which Mendes and Letendre both deny.
Photographs of Nathan Mendes. Source: Combat Base Shasta-Mendes Jiu-Jitsu
Photographs of Brett Letendre. Source: Instagram.
Mendes and Letendre shared different accounts of what occurred that night, despite the fact they acknowledged they were hanging out with each other and drinking at Mendes’ home, and that Letendre was spending the night at the Mendes home.
Disinterested North State law enforcement agencies
For nearly a year Wion and Klenk felt as if they were ignored and failed by a number of law enforcement agencies, from the Shasta County Sheriff’s Office and the Shasta County District Attorney, to the Etna Police Department, the FBI and the Sacramento-area Alcoholic Beverage Control.
As reported by A News Café, Wion believes that the Shasta County Sheriff’s Office performed an insufficient and even neglectful investigation into what happened after her son arrived at the church parking lot last year. Wion also wonders whether local law enforcement’s lack of enthusiasm in investigating the mauling case was out of loyalty to the pair of fellow law enforcement colleagues involved in the case, Mendes and Letendre.
Wion and others believe there is more to the story than what the SCSO reported with regard to Mendes and Letendre’s activities on the night of the attack upon Klenk. For example, they wonder whether someone sicced a trained K-9 upon Klenk, and then called off the dog? Regarding Klenk’s skull fracture, Wion wonders whether that injury was caused by a dog, or a human.
For Wion, the last year has held more questions than answers.
“Just because the majority accepts a lie doesn’t make it any less of a lie,” she said.
Law Offices of John L. Burris: Especially equipped to handle Klenk’s case
Formed in 1985, the Law Offices of John L. Burris is based in Oakland. The firm that has agreed to represent Klenk focuses on civil rights, with an emphasis in, among other things, police misconduct. John L. Burris, the founder of the firm, is a prominent criminal defense and civil rights attorney. His law office represented Rodney King, winning him $3.8 million in his 1994 civil rights lawsuit against the Los Angeles Police Department. Burris is the recipient of dozens of awards and honors.
Screenshot of the Law Offices of John L. Burris webpage.
Since representing King, Burris’s practice has represented plaintiffs in a series of high-profile lawsuits against police departments across the state of California. In 2003, Burris’s firm settled for $10.9 million in the “Oakland Riders” case that involved a gang of Oakland police officers found to be planting evidence on citizens. The case caused the federal government to investigate and oversee the Oakland Police Department.
In 2009, Burris represented Oscar Grant’s mother in her case against the Bay Area Rapid Transit Police in a case settled for $1.3 million. BART police officer Johannes Mehserle shot 22-year-old African American Oscar Grant while he was handcuffed on the Fruitvale BART train platform. The story of Grant’s death was later represented in the award-winning film “Fruitvale Station”.
In 2015, Burris represented Mario Woods’ mother in a case against the San Francisco Police. Multiple officers were captured on video shooting her son. The case caused protests across the Bay Area, and led to the resignation of the SFPD chief of police.
John Burris and his associates have also represented a number of celebrity public figures throughout the years, including hip hop artist Tupac Shakur and NBA superstar LeBron James.
The Law Office of John L. Burris webpage says, “Our firm has been instrumental in social reforms of police policy governing the use of canines, deadly force, hog tying, pepper spray, and other practices.” It continues, “Our work has also changed police department protocols for crowd control tactics and handling of the mentally impaired.”
Burris’ practice dedicated an entire webpage to injuries from police dogs. The webpage shares the practices landmark police dog case:
“One of our cases resulted in a change in department policy for the Oakland Police Department (OPD). In 1993, Mr. Burris represented a burglary suspect who suffered extensive wounds on his feet and legs when the police dog cornered him. At the time, the OPD trained its dogs to ‘find and bite,’ clamping onto a suspect and not letting go, or re-biting a suspect who resisted or flinched. As a result of the monetary settlement in Watkins v. City of Oakland, the OPD changed its canine training to a ‘find and bark’ policy.”
And now, the prestigious Law Office of John L. Burris has accepted Shasta County teenager Ryder Klenk as a client.
Since news of this latest development, Wion feels tremendous relief knowing her son’s case will be represented by such an esteemed law firm.
“My kids are my world,” Wion said. “I’ve been consumed with this case for 10 months. I just wanted the truth, and for people to care. Now I’m finally feeling like the weight of it has been lifted.”
Stay tuned for more ongoing A News Café coverage of Klenk v. City of Etna et al.
Note: Updated information about North State Group LLC was added to this story for clarity at 11:15 a.m. on Aug. 5, 2022.
