The owner of the canines, Eyvette Fitzgerald, 58, has been issued summonses for two counts of Canines at Large while Attacking, one count of Failure to Obtain a Dog License and one felony count of Possession of a Vicious Canine.
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HAMPTON -- Multiple people, including an officer, were bitten by two pit bulls in Hampton on Monday, police tweeted around noon .Police told 13News Now the dogs initially attacked a mail carrier. When two people tried to help they were also bitten.
The dogs are not strays and live in a home on Bell Street, police said. They aren't sure how the dogs got out of their house. It is unclear whether the dogs have vaccinations or licenses.
Bassett Elementary School was briefly placed on lockdown during the incident.
According to police, an officer who was attacked and bitten, shot and killed one of the dogs. The other dog was secured by animal control and officers and is now in quarantine.
Police said five victims were transported to the hospital with injuries that were not life threatening.
Hampton, Va. – A pool of blood in a Hampton front yard, left behind after a police officer shot and killed a one-year-old pit bull there Monday morning.
Investigators say that dog, along with another pit bull attacked 5 people on Bell Street, starting with a postal worker, then a police officer and animal control officer who were both called to help.
“Both the officer and animal control officer were bitten, non-life threatening,” says Cpl. Mary Shackelford, a Hampton Police spokesman. “At that point the officer discharged his firearm and killed one of the dogs.”
The dogs also lunged for two more, who family says were trying to hold the pit bulls down. The owner’s son, Shawn Fitzgerald, says they were both bitten on the arm.
“She was holding the dogs back,” Fitzgerald says. “The dog was biting back like that, it wasn’t like the dog was attacking.”
Fitzgerald says it was one year old sassy that was shot in the yard–property he says the dogs were only trying to protect.
Next door neighbor Claddie Jones says she never knew the dogs to be vicious.
“They’re good dogs,” Jones says. “They don’t act like that. I’m just upset a dog got shot and lost her life. There’s other ways to put a dog down. As far as a taser or a tranquilizer gun, but he just plain out shot the dog.”
The dogs’ owner, 58-year-old Eyvette Fitzgerald, was issued several summonses by police including one felony for possession of a vicious canine. She tells NewsChannel 3 that she was not home when the attacks happened.
Animal control has the other pit bull, whose family says is four-year-old General. He is currently in quarantine.
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