SAN ANTONIO – Animal Care Services issued six citations to the owner of three dogs involved in a fight with a San Antonio police K-9 officer, which ultimately led to the K-9 being accidentally shot and killed by its handler.
ACS said the owner was cited with two counts each of a dog roaming off property, a dog damaging private property, and failure to prevent an owned dog from biting another animal. Fines are set by the court and can range up to $2,000.
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The incident happened around noon on Saturday in the 9300 block of Lands Point Street.
Police said three dogs broke through a fence and attacked a SAPD K-9 officer next door.
The K-9′s handler — an SAPD officer who was off-duty at the time — was not able to separate the dogs from fighting. Police said he fired multiple shots at his neighbor’s dogs to stop the attack.
Two of the neighbor’s dogs and the K-9 were struck by the gunfire.
The officer took the K-9 to a nearby veterinary clinic, where it was pronounced dead. One of the neighbor’s dogs also died.
On Sunday, the neighbor, Amanda Harris, told KSAT that their other dog is still at the veterinary clinic, and they “don’t know if she’s going to make it.”
Harris said she didn’t hear anything during the incident until a woman screamed.
“There was no dogs whining, no barking, no nothing,” Harris said. “We immediately went over there as soon as we heard the lady scream.”
“My husband ran over there and started calling our dogs, like ‘come back, come back,’ and then the shots rang out,” Harris said. “It’s an unfortunate situation that didn’t have to happen.”
ACS said additional charges or citations may be issued depending on the investigation.
The officer was placed on administrative duty. SAPD’s Shooting Team and Internal Affairs Unit are both investigating the incident.