NEBRASKA -- An Omaha homeowner says he feared for his family's safety, that's why he shot a pit bull that came into his yard earlier this week. The pet owner says someone broke open the gate and let the dog out and it's not the first time this has happened.
“Tip” wasn't as tough as he looks. “He wasn't a fighter to be honest with you, he was a couch potato.”
But Eddie Garrido says his 2-year-old pit bull took off after someone sabotaged the gate to his fenced back yard at 110th and Ida streets. "Someone had to come out and open it.”
Garrido left home confident his dog was behind a padlocked fence. Once out from the fence, the pit bull went up the street and around the corner for three to four blocks to a front yard where a homeowner says he and his family felt threatened, so he shot and killed the dog.
The homeowner, a former police officer, declined an interview, but did say he had never seen the dog before it came into his yard.
Garrido understands Tip looked intimidating, but shouldn't have been shot. “Anybody that I told that I know can't believe that it happened. They're like, Tip? Are you kidding?”
Garrido owned two other pit bulls before Tip. One was euthanized, another sent away after being found on the loose. Garrido claims both dogs were intentionally let out by someone who wants his dogs picked up, or worse. “Whoever let them out and goes out of their way to do that is completely cold-hearted.”
Mark Langan of the Nebraska Humane Society tells Fact Finders that no tickets will be issued. The homeowner was justified in shooting the dog in his yard.
(WOWT - Dec 2, 2011)
