Sunday, November 14, 2004
AKRON (AP) -- A police officer shot and killed a pit bull after it terrorized a neighborhood, attacking a woman, her daughter and a teenager.
Lakeysha Jones, 27, said she heard her children yelling shortly after they left the house about 7 a.m. Friday to go to school. She looked out the window of her home and saw a pit bull attacking her 10-year-old daughter Lazaria in the driveway.
The girl's parents ran out in their pajamas and her father punched the dog, but it wouldn't stop biting the girl, her mother said.
"The dog had her," Jones said. "It was locked on her leg. I was yelling, 'Get this dog off my baby!'"
Neighbor Wayne Santos, 50, hit the dog with a broomstick as he joined in the chaotic effort to free the girl.
Lazaria eventually got away and needed five stitches to close a wound on her leg.
The dog then bit Lakeysha Jones on her right leg as the family struggled to get back into their home.
The dog later spotted Eric Santa, 16, as he walked to school and bit him on the leg as he kicked at the animal.
Santa said a police officer arrived and shot the dog once in its hindquarters, knocking the animal to the ground. Santa said the dog got back up and started coming at him again, and the officer fired several more rounds into the dog, killing it.
Santa said he needed four stitches on his leg.
No one knows who owned the dog, a tan female wearing a collar but no tags, but a city spokesman said it would be tested for rabies.