Community policing officers were sent at 11:07 a.m. to 126 Schiller Ave. to investigate a recurring complaint by a neighbor of loud music, Sgt. Tom Connellan said. Connellan gave these details:
Officers arrived and heard the music. The first went to the upstairs apartment, where no one was home. As they were upstairs, the music became louder.
The officers went back down and knocked on the first-floor apartment door. The officers then heard a dog growling and barking on the other side of the door.
The officers identified themselves through the closed door and yelled for residents to control the dog. The door then opened and the dog charged out. The first officer fired a Taser device at the dog, but one of the two prongs missed and the dog got back up in the small enclosed porch. With one officer backed into a corner, the second officer fired his handgun, fatally shooting the dog.
Elizabeth Coy, who lives at the house, said Lucky, the pit bull, was good dog. The family disagrees with the police version of events.
Jessica Coy, Elizabeth Coy’s granddaughter, said her boyfriend answered the door and attempted to get the dog under control but the officer at the door prevented the door from closing, allowing the dog to escape.
She said the officer pushed the door open.
She said the officers did not identify themselves or order the dog be put under control before the door opened.
Connellan said the dog has been picked up by animal control officers previously and was unlicensed. Jessica Coy said the dog was picked up as a stray, but that he wasn’t a vicious dog. She said the dog is licensed but the actual license was misplaced in a move.
She said the dog was lying on the ground twitching because of the Taser when the dog was shot. Family members did say police pulled a Taser probe from the wall of the porch after the incident.
“The officer had no right to shoot that dog and I am suing the police department,” Jessia Coy said.
The shooting is still under investigation, Connellan said.
(Post Standard - June 17, 2011)
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