An Aurora woman said that police gunned down her dog Saturday evening after the animal escaped her yard.
Valeria Rodriguez Augina said Angelo, a 60-pound AMERICAN BULLDOG, and Luna, his mother, were missing when she arrived at her home near Sable Boulevard and Cimarron Circle, so she went looking for them.
According to a police report of the incident, police arrived after two people reported that a woman had been attacked, was on the ground and that the dogs were chasing people.
Officer Mike Hawkins reported that when he responded to the call, the dogs ran up to his car and jumped onto it a couple of times barking at him. “In my 23 years of police experience, I had never seen dogs do this.”
When he got out of the car, one of the animals approached him growling, with its head down and ears pinned back. “Based on police in-service training I’ve attended within the last five years, I recognized this behavior as a dog that was about to attack me. I was frightened. I was afraid that this dog could do serious bodily injury to me.”
He fired a shot gun, aiming at the dog’s center mass, and the dog ran off yelping, he wrote. He found the woman, Patricia Buster, who had been attacked, sitting on the ground with her dachshund. “She appeared visibly frightened and upset. I noted blood smears on her arms.”
She said she was walking her dog on a leash when the dogs accosted her. “She picked up her dog, who was frightened, and had scratched her forearms,” Hawkins said.
Buster couldn’t be reached for comment.
A police officer told Rodriguez Augina that police shot Angelo round 9:30 p.m. at an apartment complex near her home, she said. Aurora Animal Control later came to her house and told her that one of her dogs roughed up another dog before the shooting, Rodriguez said Thursday.
Police issued her a summons.
Lilli Romero, 19, said she was leaving a party in the area with her 14-year-old sister when she saw police confronting the dog. “The dog was pushing himself against a door. He wasn’t being aggressive, and I yelled at the cops to leave the dog alone. He is really scared.”
Police were pointing guns at the animal, she said.
She left before the animal was shot, she said. “I didn’t want to get in trouble, and my sister wanted to go. I didn’t want her to get hurt.”
Rodriguez Augina said the Animal Control officer told her the dog was being treated at the VCA Alameda East Veterinary Hospital emergency room. “The vet told me he was shot in the face. His jaw was shattered, and the bullet went through his throat. I was there when he was put down.”
Angelo and Luna resemble pit bulls, a breed that is illegal to keep in Aurora.
“I always had problems with people saying they were pit bulls, so I went to animal control and they did a physical on Angelo, and determined that he wasn’t,” Rodriguez said.
A DNA test determined that Luna wasn’t a pit bull either, she said.
Colorado’s Dog Protection Act, passed in 2013 requires local law enforcement to undergo training in order to prevent the shooting of dogs by local law enforcement officers in the line of duty. Officers taking the training learn to differentiate between threatening and non-threatening dog behaviors, said Jeffrey Justice, administrator of the Dog Shot by Police Facebook page and a Colorado animal advocate who has been involved in animal cruelty cases.
The act also calls for police to use less than lethal methods to trap, rather than shoot dogs, whenever possible. “Dogs can be aggressive, but I have been involved in aggressive dog attacks on smaller dogs, and I was able to get out of the situation with the use of pepper spray,” Justice said.
But Hawkins wrote: “It is my considered opinion that this act was necessary to defend myself. I do not believe a taser, pepper spray or less lethal shotgun would have been effective.”
A COMMENT FROM THIS STORY:
3 comments:
This report is so frustrating... Yakety yak about the Pitbulls, wait American Bulldogs. And the owner sob story and the irrelevant teenager's story(she wasn't even there to witness the actual shooting and they were probably trying to corner the dogs so they wouldn't attack anyone else)
So what about the victim with blood on her arms? What about the hero officer that put a stop to a dangerous situation?
It's so frustrating that the water gets a muddy with whining from pit lovers when if they were the ones being attacked they would be crying the blues. Hypocrites!
Oh, this nutter is exonerated! Her bulldogs, or whatever the crap she wants to call them, were not pit bulls. HOWEVER, her pit bulls did exactly what pit bulls do! EXACTLY! This is why pit bulls are illegal in Aurora, but this nutter is special! Her pit bulls looked like pit bulls, but were examined by a vet, and a DNA test, and voila! NOT PIT BULLS!
Sorry, I don't believe her one bit!
Whatever kind of dog she thinks she had, they still caused a woman to be injured and were threatening other humans. This is not ok. The responsibility for the death of the dog lies solely with the owner. The officer did what he felt he needed to do to keep people safe, which is his job. The owner's job was to keep her dogs confined. She failed and her dog getting shot was the least thing that happened. A human was injured. If a young man had confronted the woman in a threatening manner, causing her to fall and injure herself, he'd be going to jail. People should be able to walk in a neighborhood and not be afraid of someone else's pet. And police should be able to take down an aggressive dog without having to grovel at the feet of a dimwit, irresponsible dog owner.
Whew! That feels better.
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