June 7th, 2010 | Author: LOWELL — A police officer killed a pit bull with a bullet to the head on a Centralville sidewalk as the dog ran toward him through the open front gate of the owners’ house yesterday afternoon.
The shooting, which took place in front of a crowd on Lilley Avenue, many of them children, infuriated the dog’s owners and neighbors who were alarmed by the shots.
Police officials said the shooting appears to be justified, calling the unrestrained dog a threat to the officer and to residents.
T.J. Farrell, who lives down the street, said he heard two gunshots and ran out of his house in time to see the officer fatally shoot the pit bull as the dog, wounded from two earlier shots, lay on the sidewalk outside 19 Lilley Ave.
“You never know what’s going on around here and then you find out it’s a cop shooting. That bullet could have ricocheted off the ground and hit somebody,” said Farrell, who feared for the safety of his two 2-year-old twin daughters. “The dog didn’t even bite nobody.”
Deputy Police Superintendent Arthur Ryan said the dog tried to attack the police officer, who had been called to the house to help a city animal-control officer remove the dog, which was unregistered, from the home at about 1:30 p.m. Ryan said the officer was outside as the pit bull came running down the front stairs of the house and through the gate toward him. The
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officer fired two shots at the dog, which fell to the ground.”Frankly, it appears that if the officer hadn’t acted the way he had, the unrestrained dog would have injured him and could have hurt anyone else who was there,” said Ryan. “Any time the officer has to use his firearm, it’s a serious matter. It’s certainly something no officer on the Lowell Police Department wishes to do. Clearly this is a stressful situation that happened.”
Ryan said the officer and the animal-control officer decided to euthanize the pit bull with the third and final bullet to the head as the dog lay on the sidewalk.
A mangled .40-caliber slug and two spent shell casings were all that was left outside the home shortly after the shooting. There
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was a divot in the asphalt sidewalk from one of the bullets.”They waited two minutes later when he was lying down and they shot him in the head,” 18-year-old Alberto Marbert, who owned the dog, said through tears.
Marbert, who lives at 19 Lilley Ave., denied the 2-year-old dog, named Ashes, tried to attack the police officer.
“My dog! My dog! I can’t believe this!” screamed Jane Marie Marbert, his 16-year-old sister, who sobbed outside their home.
Consuelo Cruz, who runs a day care out of her home next door, said she was terrified hearing the gunshots. She cares for two girls, ages 3 and 5, who saw the scene as their mother was picking them up and were shaken up.
“He didn’t do anything and all of a sudden (the
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police officer) shot him three times. Pow! Pow! Pow!” Cruz said. “The kids are nervous.”Cruz’s 17-year-old son, Daely Betacourt, said he watched the incident from the window of his house.
“He shot the dog in the head for no reason,” said Betacourt.
Ryan would not release the names of the officers involved while the incident is under investigation. Lowell police policy requires that an internal investigation be conducted when an officer fires a gun. Ryan said there is no indication department policy was violated, and the officer remains on duty.
Department policy allows officers to use deadly force on animals who are an immediate danger to humans or other animals and on severely injured animals in order to relieve their suffering, Ryan said.
“The dog was a dangerous animal and dogs, in particular, don’t act the same when they’re injured and tend to get very defensive and dangerous,” Ryan said.
Assistant City Manager T.J. McCarthy, who oversees animal control as head of public works, said the Marbert family had been fined $75 within the last month for failing to register the dog. He said city officials didn’t immediately seize the dog because he was confined to the home and not roaming the streets, and gave the owners several weeks to register the dog.
“Obviously, we want to try to work with owners,” said McCarthy.
When an animal-control officer stopped by the home yesterday, the dog was still not registered and the officer planned to take the dog to Wignall Animal Hospital, the city’s contracted veterinarian, for an examination and care until the owners had registered the dog, according to McCarthy.
Jane Marie Marbert blamed the police officer who responded to the scene for leaving the front gate of the home open.
Said Ryan: “However the gate got left open doesn’t change the fact that if the officer hadn’t acted, we would be talking about an officer getting mauled. Nobody wants to be involved in these situations.”
Last month, Lowell officials euthanized two 16-month-old pit bulls after they attacked David Spaulding, a 68-year-old Chelmsford Street homeowner. Spaulding’s neighbor, Bruce Briere, has been credited with saving his life by breaking down a padlocked fence that confines Spaulding’s backyard and throwing pickets from the fence at the dogs, named Venom and Rampage, until they fled back into the house’s enclosed porch.
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