Friday, September 7, 2007

Lancaster officer shoots two pitbulls; one dead, one euthanized

By Brian Allen of TODAY Newspapers

A Lancaster police officer shot two pit bulls that tried to attack him early on the morning of Sept. 1.

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That officer responded to a call in the 1500 block of Nottingham Drive around 7:30 a.m. A woman had attempted to go outside and when she entered her garage, the two dogs were in her driveway behaving aggressively. She got her husband and when he went outside, according to police reports, the dog tried to attack. The dogs then tried to attack the officer, who then shot both the dogs, one dying at the scene. Police found the other dog later and it was euthanized.

Assistant City Manager Opal Mauldin-Robertson said the couple reported these dogs had long troubled the neighborhood with their aggressive behavior.

“They said the dogs belonged to someone in the area and periodically they got loose,” she said. “From what they told us, these dogs have basically been terrorizing the neighborhood. No owner has come forward to claim the dogs.”

Mauldin-Robertson said Lancaster has a stray dog ordinance that does not address any specific breed of dog. Both DeSoto and Duncanville have had highly publicized meetings on what to do with potentially dangerous dogs in recent months.

A new state law seeking to control the problem, ironically, went into effect the day of the Lancaster incident. Pet owners can now face felony charges that could send them to prison if their dogs kill or seriously injure someone.

The fatal mauling of a 76-year-old Central Texas woman prompted the stricter law. The law eliminates the “free-bite” defense, meaning a dog's first bite can be a felony if it causes serious injury.

Texas' law is one of the nation's toughest, and lawmakers are hoping it will make violations easier to crack down on. Critics of previous laws believed the ordinances punished problem dogs and not problem owners.

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