LAKE TAHOE, CALIFORNIA -- A hungry bear broke into a California home and snacked on bread and fruit before deputies were able to chase it away.
Footage from inside the house in Northstar, North Lake Tahoe, shows the bear rifling through bags of groceries on a kitchen island.
It was posted to Facebook on Thursday by the Placer County Sheriff's Office, which branded the animal 'hungry and fearless'.
Bears are coming out of hibernation and deputies say this particular bear broke into the house specifically to look for food.
Fortunately the bear was chased away without causing any injuries or property damage.
The Sheriff's Office wrote online: 'This afternoon, this hungry and fearless bear broke into a home at Northstar, North Lake Tahoe, to get some groceries.
'The homeowners called us, and our deputies were able to chase him out of the house, after he snacked on some fruit and bread!
'As bears are coming out of hibernation, please use utmost caution if you encounter them.
'In this case, the homeowners were very grateful to the deputies who got the bear out of their house with no injuries and no property damage.'
FACEBOOK POST
Placer County Sheriff's Office is at Northstar California Resort.
This afternoon, this hungry and fearless bear broke into a home at Northstar, North Lake Tahoe, to get some groceries. The homeowners called us, and our deputies were able to chase him out of the house, after he snacked on some fruit and bread!
As bears are coming out of hibernation, please use utmost caution if you encounter them. In this case, the homeowners were very grateful to the deputies who got the bear out of their house with no injuries and no property damage.
COLORADO -- Boulder County Sheriff's Office posted on Facebook April 17 at 5:56am ·
Our deputies responded to a vehicle trespass with an....usual suspect. A bear broke into a car and locked himself in.
Car 0. Bear 1.
They were able to open the car door and safely let the bear out without anyone, including the bear, being harmed.
This is a good reminder that wildlife is out and about this time of year looking for food. Here are tips for living with bears. Trust us, you don’t want to have to deal with a “hangry” bear.
1) Don’t feed birds while bears are active. Attract birds with water feeders, plantings and nest boxes instead.
2) Store garbage in bear-resistant containers, enclosures or buildings.
3) Put trash out the morning of pick up, not the night before.
4) Keep bear-accessible windows and doors closed and locked at night.
5) Keep garage doors closed. Lock the door between the house and the garage.
6) Don’t leave anything inside your vehicle that could attract a bear. That includes sun tan lotion, hand crème and air fresheners, along with empty food wrappers and packaging.
7) Don’t leave pet food or empty pet food dishes outside. Store pet food in a secure enclosure.
8)Put chickens and small livestock in a secure pen at night or electric fence their enclosure.
9) Pick fruit and produce as soon as, or just before, it ripens.
10) Unwelcome mats and electric fencing are proven ways to keep bears out.
DELAWARE -- After four days of avoiding questions about Wilmington police's response to a dog attack in which a senior citizen was injured and a dog was killed, the city issued a press release saying it should've handled the situation differently.
Wilmington police Chief Robert Tracy said he reviewed the incident that occurred Monday night in the Cool Spring neighborhood and "concluded that a police officer should have been dispatched to the scene."
"The chief said should future events of a similar nature occur involving a dog attack in progress, a police officer will be sent to the scene of the incident," the news release said.
Diane Olin White, 66, said she and her two dogs were attacked by a stray pit bull after 9:30 p.m. on Monday.
A neighbor called 911 at 9:46 p.m. while the attack was ongoing, but the dispatcher did not send a police car to assist. Instead, she referred the case to a state animal control official, who didn't make it to the scene until around 10:35 p.m., a neighbor said.
Dispatchers are instructed to send reports about animal-on-animal incidents to the state's Office of Animal Welfare, according to City Councilwoman Loretta Walsh. But the dispatcher should have used "common sense" and considered that a person was at risk, too, Walsh said.
White and her boxer mix Stella survived with injuries from the attack, but 12-year-old Darcy, a small white poodle and Jack Russell mix, was crushed and mauled to death.
The chief said the Police Department interviewed White and other witnesses and also reviewed the 911 call. (Scroll down to listen to the audio.)
“From all that we have learned about this tragic incident, it appears that the dog had been severely injured very quickly and died soon after being attacked by the other dog,” Tracy said.
“While we can’t be certain that an immediate response from a police officer or state animal control officer would have saved this animal, I still feel that city police should have been in a position to assist if possible."
He added: "I am a dog owner, and I know what this loss must mean to the citizen who lost her animal. I express my regrets to the owner and to the other community members who came to the assistance of the owner and her animal.”
After regular business hours, the state's animal control response system is staffed by on-call officers who may not be close enough to an incident’s location to provide an immediate response, Tracy said.
The Office of Animal Welfare confirmed it got a call Monday night after normal business hours.
"The answering service quickly relayed the report to the on-call officer, who was already in the field due to being dispatched to another call in southern New Castle County, and he immediately headed to Wilmington, arriving on scene in approximately 30 minutes," said Andrea Wojcik of the Office of Health and Risk Communication.
The chief said in the news release that regardless of the way the state response system is configured, he has still concluded that a city police officer should have been sent to the scene.
The News Journal filed a Freedom of Information Act request on Tuesday with New Castle County and the city for the 911 call related to the incident. The county provided their piece of audio by Thursday morning.
The city did not provide its section of the 911 call before The News Journal published its story.
On Friday afternoon, after dozens of city residents expressed their disappointment in the police response, the chief released the tape as part of "an effort to shed more light on this incident" because "it’s important for the public to hear what the 911 call taker heard," the news release said.
The call is three minutes and six seconds long.
"911, what is your emergency?" the city dispatcher said.
"Hi, please come to the corner of Van Buren and Cool Spring park," said the caller, White's neighbor Heather Hook. "We have a loose pit bull, and it just attacked a dog really badly. We're trying to hold it, and we don't know what to do."
The dispatcher asked where Hook is located, and Hook told her again. Hook then passed the phone to a nearby teenager, who again gave the location.
"Whose dog is it?" the dispatcher asked.
It's not until the two minute and 20-second mark, when White is on the line, that the dispatcher asks, "Are you injured? Do you need an ambulance?"
Animal welfare officials told the Mayor's Office on Friday that no one has stepped forward to claim ownership of pit bull, which has been quarantined to detect whether the animal exhibits symptoms of rabies.
If an owner is found, the animal welfare office will pursue "dangerous dog charges" under the state statute, the city said. If no owner is identified, the animal will be euthanized after the quarantine period ends.
Helen with her surviving dog Stella
The city still has not returned calls from The News Journal about the incident, nor answered questions submitted by email.
White said she is pleased the next animal emergency will get a police response.
"I’m sorry it took a tragedy for it to get changed," she said. "But I’m glad something good came out of it."
DELAWARE -- In the 911 call, Wilmington resident Heather Hook was clear: She needed help.
"There's a pit bull loose, and it's attacking a dog, and we're trying to hold it, and it's hurt a dog," she says frantically on the recording from Monday night.
A New Castle County dispatcher said he would transfer her to Wilmington police.
"No, please! Come right away," she said as the call was sent to the city.
"911, what is your emergency?" the city dispatcher said.
"Hi, please come to the corner of Van Buren and Cool Spring park. We have a loose pit bull, and it just attacked a dog really badly."
Wilmington police didn't show up, according to residents.
The incident exposes a "glitch" in the Police Department's procedure for handling animal incidents, City Councilwoman Loretta Walsh said. "More common sense should’ve been used."
For Cool Spring resident Diane Olin White, 66, the night started like any other. Around 9:30 p.m., she was walking her two dogs – Stella, a brown 50-pound boxer mix, and Darcy, a white 17-pound poodle and Jack Russell mix.
Seemingly out of nowhere, a stray pit bull ran up to her dogs and started viciously attacking them, she said.
It went for Stella first, digging its teeth into her, but when White started hitting the pit bull to protect Stella, the pit went for 12-year-old Darcy.
The "monster" went back and forth between White's two pets for what seemed like forever to White.
Recalling advice from a veterinarian, the former school teacher tried to force her fist into the pit's mouth to prevent it from ripping her animals apart. She said she was bitten in the process.
"I felt like it was in Revelations and Evil had attacked my dogs," she said.
White "screamed and screamed and screamed," alerting neighbors.
Hook heard the commotion and ran into the street to help, she said, but the pit bull had already badly hurt Darcy.
"Diane was lying on the pit bull screaming when I got there, and Darcy was twisted in its jaws," she said. "The Pit Bull was eviscerating her dog, just chomping on it."
Hook called 911 at 9:46 p.m. Soon after Hook was transferred to the city police dispatcher, White was able to release Darcy from the pit's grip. Hook handed the phone to a nearby teenager so she could help Darcy.
"(Darcy's) blood had soaked through my shirt, down my arms," she said. "It was bad."
As for the police, "nobody came," White said.
Hook believes the city referred the case to the state's office of animal welfare because 10 minutes after the 911 call, Hook got a call from a state animal control officer.
According to Hook, he said he was out of the area and wouldn't be able to immediately respond to the scene.
"He said he was backed up and couldn’t make it up there in time," she said.
Hook didn't have much time to protest.
Other neighbors took control of the pit bull, which eventually calmed down, and White and Hook rushed to a vet. Stella suffered puncture wounds and survived, but it was too late for Darcy.
"There was nothing they could do," White said. "He didn’t have a heartbeat. He was gone."
Around 10:35 p.m., state animal control officers picked up the pit bull, neighbor Greg Luna said. That's about an hour after the attack, according to White.
An animal welfare officer met White at the hospital to take a report after 11 p.m., she said. At that point, she felt it was too little, too late.
"If you say you [won't] come, what's Plan B? Obviously, he didn’t have a Plan B."
White said she is devastated by the loss of her beloved dog and disappointed with Wilmington police.
"If there is somebody or something that is being attacked, get there," she said. "I’m angry. And I’m so sad there’s not even a word to describe the grief."
The longtime animal rescuer and 24-year resident of the city said even if police had responded, it may not have saved Darcy's life. But things also could have been worse.
"I could’ve been killed," said White, who has scrapes and bruises, is taking a "powerful antibiotic" and required a tetanus shot.
Hook, too, was surprised the neighborhood was left to fend for itself.
"I assume when you call 911 and tell the police to come, they come," she said.
But apparently, it's not always that simple.
Dispatchers are instructed to send reports about animal-on-animal incidents to the state's Office of Animal Welfare, according to Walsh. That's what they did, Walsh said, but perhaps didn't consider that a person was at risk, too.
"I think the call-taker followed protocol," said Walsh, the City Council's public safety chair. "But they should know they can go off protocol in a very dire situation, and this was a dire situation."
White said she was contacted by a Wilmington police inspector who said the department is reviewing the incident. According to White, the inspector admitted that "there should have been a response" and said the dispatcher will be disciplined.
Officially, Wilmington police would not acknowledge whether a mistake was made.
Despite repeated interview requests over three days, Sgt. Stephanie Castellani, public information officer for the Wilmington Police Department, refused to take questions about this incident.
The News Journal obtained the first part of Hook's 911 call from New Castle County. A request was submitted to the city for the rest of it, but officials have not yet provided it.
Update: The entire 3 minutes has now been released.
AUDIO CALL TO 911:
The Office of Animal Welfare confirmed it got a call Monday night after normal business hours.
"The answering service quickly relayed the report to the on-call officer, who was already in the field due to being dispatched to another call in southern New Castle County, and he immediately headed to Wilmington, arriving on scene in approximately 30 minutes," said Andrea Wojcik of the Office of Health and Risk Communication.
Wojcik declined to answer several specific questions citing an internal policy.
The pit bull was taken to the Brandywine Valley SPCA where it is on rabies quarantine, Wojcik said. At the conclusion of the quarantine, the dog will be euthanized if no owner comes forward.
White wants it to be put down.
"I've never been scared in the city," White said. "This is enough now that I’d like to leave."
MISSOURI -- June Tucker's vicious 5-year-old pit bull, named "Repo," is in an animal hospital with two bullet wounds. He was shot by an Overland Police Department officer near Mary Ridge Park Monday night.
"He just doesn't deserve to be shot and just to leave him on the porch to bleed to death," complains Tucker.
Tucker said she took her dog out for a walk around 10:30 p.m. using a belt as a leash. But she said the dog got 'spooked' and pulled the leash out of her hand and ran off.
BTW, in the video we find that her 'leash' is actually a belt. A belt. Serioiusly. I'm starting to doubt that she was ever 'walking' him in the first place. Likely she just let her mauler roam around the neighborhood all the time because she was too lazy to properly walk him with a collar and leash.
Tucker didn't bother to go after her Pit Bull, a breed of dog known for roaming and seeking victims to attack... Instead, Tucker said she went back in the house and assumed whenever her dog was through breaking the law and roaming loose, it would return soon.
At the same time, Overland police officers were searching the neighborhood for a prowler.
"It was like, maybe fifteen seconds and that's when you hear boom, boom, boom, boom, boom," said Tucker.
According to Overland Police Chief Michael Laws, the pit bull came running from a dark area and attacked the department K-9, named "Tzar."
"And according to the witnesses we interviewed and the officers who were there, had him by the throat and had him pinned to the ground," said Laws.
Chief Laws said the K-9 was able to break free and the pit bull backed up, but then the pit bull started coming at the K-9. Laws said that's when the officer shot the dog.
"I was a K-9 officer years ago and we're all dog lovers. So we hate to see anything like this happen but we also have to defend our property and our animals. The dog is a part of our department, a valuable member of our police department," said Laws.
Because Tucker won't stop running her mouth about how the police 'unfairly' shot her nasty dog, they say they're seeking charges against her.
CAPE TOWN, SOUTH AFRICA -- A retired police officer was tragically mauled to death by his own pit bull at his home in Belmont Park, Kraaifontein, on Thursday night.
The dog turned on his owner, 50, as well as his wife, Ruth, who is in ICU at Karl Bremer Hospital. Neighbours say the couple were found lying in pools of their own blood.
Residents say Henry Kleynhans had just spoiled himself and his son to a new car and motorbike on the Tuesday before the incident. His new Harley Davidson was splattered with blood stains.
A trail of blood marked the path where the animal dragged his owner’s body around the house. Henry’s son, Chad, who was not home at the time of the attack, was too distraught to speak to the media.
The former captain was stationed at Kraaifontein SAPS and had retired in January last year.
Next-door neighbour, Eldridge Africa, 32, said he heard a commotion at the house and went to see what was happening. “I heard a weird noise coming from the house before 10pm; my girlfriend and I went to look what was going on.
“When we arrived at the gate, we saw Mufasa, the dog, dragging his owner and tried to fight him off ... but he wouldn’t let go. He’d just brought his new motorbike home that day and never got to ride it.
“He was a calm guy who always did everything for everyone. He always told us something about that dog wasn’t right.
“His wife was bitten on her arms, legs and stomach and was lying in the passage next to her house in a pool of blood.”
Doctors at Kraaifontein Day Hospital said Henry had lost too much blood and died.
The SPCA immediately collected the dog after the deadly attack. The society did not respond to media queries by Sunday night.
Police spokesperson Captain FC van Wyk confirmed the incident and said an inquest has been registered for investigation.
VENTURA, CALIFORNIA -- An off-duty Los Angeles police officer shot and killed a dog that attacked a woman and her dog.
The incident occurred Wednesday afternoon in the city of Ventura.
Ventura police Cpl. Tank Sears tells the Ventura County Star the LAPD officer was driving by and stopped to help as the woman and her dog were being attacked by a pit bull terrier.
Sears says the woman had already been injured and when the pit bull tried to attack her again, the officer fired.
The Los Angeles Police Department is conducting a use-of-force investigation. Detective Meghan Aguilar says that is standard for any employee who discharges a firearm.
FLORIDA -- A family woke up to find that its dog had been shot twice by a police officer.
The officer said the Pit Bull was dangerous and lunged at him, but the family said it doesn't buy that story.
DONNA WOOD: CERTIFIED FROOT LOOP
The Titusville family is looking for answers.
Police responded to reports Saturday morning that a dog named Prince was loose in the neighborhood.
According to the case report, the Titusville officer who responded to the scene said he forgot to turn on his body camera before firing two shots at the dog.
He said Prince lunged at him, but now the family wants proof.
"I want a justifiable reason, proof, which I'm now not going to get. Justice for my dog," said Donna Wood, the dog's owner.
Wood said she was sleeping at her mother's house early Saturday morning when she was woken up by the news that an officer had shot her pit bull.
"The officer actually shot my dog through his nostril, through his jaw, taking off his back teeth and messing up his back jaw," Wood said.
Just before 10 a.m. Saturday, neighbor Michael Shimshock called police to report two dogs loose at the home.
He said he had been walking his own dog at the time when the large gray dog charged at them, acting like it was going to attack them.
"I stood my ground, yelled get back and a few choice words," he said.
Shimshock wasn't hurt and called 911 after the dog eventually backed off.
Officer Lincoln Strom said he forgot to activate his body camera (likely because it was more of an Animal Control call; he knew he was at the owner's house because neighbors knew who the dogs belonged to BECAUSE THEY WERE REPEATEDLY LOOSE so this officer thought he'd bang on the door, have the dumb owners put their dogs back inside the house and be on his way), but while he tried to knock on the front door, the Pit Bull lunged at him, with his mouth open.
That's when Strom fired two shots hitting the dog in the face.
Well, that proves the dog was coming at him if it was shot in the face.
"He was one of my kids and I had no choice but to put him down and put him out of his misery," Wood said.
According to the police report, Animal Control has responded to the home no less than four times and she was cited for this VERY SAME PIT BULL biting a woman.
Wood claims he didn't do it.
"He's never bitten, attacked a dog, attacked a cat, attacked a kid, a squirrel, nothing," she said.
Notice she didn't say, "He's never bitten, attacked a person". That's a subconscious slip - if she was certain her pibble was innocent she would have included that as well "He's never bitten, attacked a person". Also, what about the neighbor who was nearly attacked by her Pit Bull -- and who called the police to come out. What was her dog doing running loose in the first place??? And what about the other FOUR TIMES Animal Control was at her house?
WESH 2 News contacted Animal Control to ask for more information about Prince and his history at the address, and we are waiting to hear from officials.
TEXAS -- Lisa Pauline Schneider posted on Facebook January 20, 2018 at 7:40pm ·
My Grand son Kayden has been rushed the hospital after being attack by a Pit Bull he is missing an ear... Plz pray for him.. and he has a whole in his neck...
Lisa Pauline Schneider - This is my 11 yr old grandson
