The dog, hit in its hindquarters, will survive. But Riverside police Chief Mark Reiss said he wishes it hadn’t happened.
“They certainly don't set out for that and they were following it until they could put it in residence where it came from, but circumstances didn't work out that way,” Reiss told News Center 7’s Mark Bruce.
Police were dispatched when someone called to report that a large dog was roaming the area along Oakdell Avenue. The situation escalated when the officers arrived and ended with a dog wounded by gunfire.
Police said they found the roaming dog and neighborhood resident Amanda Easter told the officers where the dog belonged. She said she went back inside the house as the officers tried to corral the dog back into its yard.
Police said the dog charged at a woman and her daughter who had come out of a different house down the block. The officers said they distracted the animal to take its attention off the woman and child.
Reiss said at that point, the dog charged officers and one of them fired a round that struck the dog in its hindquarters.
The dog’s owner will be cited because the animal got out of its fence, said police, who noted that other violations could be filed.
On March 28, police in Riverside shot and kill a pit bull mix that attacked a man and was so aggressive that they had to shoot it several times, finally with a shotgun.
Responding officers said a large dog had a man on the ground on Rondoah Street and was attacking him. When they tried to get the dog away, it charged at them and went back and forth between the officers and the victim.
Reiss said an officer shot the animal twice with his gun, but the dog did not die. So, another officer got a shotgun and put the animal down.
The victim was taken to a hospital suffering from severe cuts to his hand.
(WHIO - May 31, 2012)
