nothin Pit Bull Attack Draws Crowd, Cop Gunshots | New Haven Independent

Pit Bull Attack Draws Crowd, Cop Gunshots

Paul Bass Photo

Officer Novella consoles the attacked dog’s owner.

An elderly woman watched a pit bull suddenly maul her own dog and start tearing it apart until three officers arrived and fired a bevy of bullets into the attacker.

The dramatic scene took place shortly after 10 a.m. Sunday around the corner from the Hospital of St. Raphael on Sherman Avenue near the corner of George Street.

It began when two neighborhood fixtures, an elderly woman and her elderly mixed-breed dog (described by one cop as a fat, nice old dog”), were on the sidewalk on their regular walk.

Suddenly, according to the woman (who, distraught, declined to give her name) and other eyewitnesses, a pit bull lunged at the woman’s dog. It stayed on top of it, attacking it and beginning to tear off its head. Dozens of bystanders were nearby.

One of them was Jessica Cruz (pictured), who works at a group home a block away and sees the woman walking the dog daily.

The pit bull was going crazy,” she said. She said the elderly woman tried to beat the pit bull back with a cane, to no avail.

The [pit bull] was locked on the other dog’s neck,” said James Burton, a 33-year-old TGIF cook who was leaving his apartment for a job.

People called police, who rushed to the scene. It was 10:09 a.m.

Meanwhile, Officers Jodi Novella and Kristen Fitzgerald happened to be around the corner on another call. They heard the commotion.

About an hour and a half earlier, Officer Fitzgerald had seen the pit bull, on the loose and acting wild, on Whalley Avenue. At the time it had eluded her. Now she and the other cops and the crowd watched the pit bull continue to tear at its dead prey.

Before firing on the pit bull, officers, with the help of neighbors, cleared bystanders away from the immediate area, police later said. An estimated 30 people had gathered.

Then three officers — Novella, Fitzgerald, and Andrew Gambardella — began firing from several feet away in the street.

They were worried that the dog might next attack people in the crowd, according to Lt. Kenneth Blanchard, the supervisor on the scene.

First an officer fired one shot into the pit bull, according to Blanchard. That shot failed to stop the dog.

Then an officer fired a second shot, hitting the dog again. Still, the pit bull kept going.

At that point, Blanchard said, the officers needed to fire a lot more shots to subdue the dog in order to protect public safety. They finally killed the dog. He said he didn’t know the number of shots fired. Witnesses, including Cruz and Burton, said they saw or heard some 12 – 15 shots.

The crowd lingered as cops covered the two dogs with a white sheet (at left in photo) until the department’s animal control officer could come retrieve them.

Novella, who happens to be one of the department’s K‑9 officers (her usual partner is Nia), and Fitzgerald made a point of consoling the elderly dog owner amid all the commotion.

Some in the crowd called out criticisms that the police hadn’t tased the dog.

Blanchard and police spokesman Officer David Hartman both said using a taser would have made the situation worse.

A taser shot lasts five seconds, they said. It would have enraged the pit bull, which could then have broken free and begun attacking people in a heightened state.

A neighbor consoles the dog owner.

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