OFF THE WIRE
A woman in her 60s was the victim of an unprovoked attack by a
Stockton police dog Wednesday afternoon. The woman sustained a
laceration to her leg after the K9 went on the attack inside a retail
store.
Stockton K9 officers were training nearby when the dog got
away from its handlers. The incident happened within a matter of seconds
inside the Marshalls in Stockton.
A German Shepard went charging
in and mauled a 62-year-old woman who was shopping inside. But a
quick-thinking witness was able to pull the dog off.
"You could
hear her screams for a mile," said Bob Davis, who heard the woman's
cries for help. "This poor lady was defenseless and no one was helping
her."
Davis was outside when he heard the screams and then quickly jumped into action.
"The poor lady was on the ground bleeding profusely and not looking good, so I helped get the dog off her," he said.
But
it wasn't that easy. Davis said it was a struggle to get the dog off
the woman. He had to punch the dog several times before it released its
tight grip. The woman was taken to an area hospital with non-life
threatening injuries.
"[The] bite should have never happened in the first place," Stockton police Officer Joe Silva said.
The department is calling the attack an accident and is conducting an administrative review to look into how the K9 got loose.
"We
just want to reassure the public that during this review, the dog will
be taken off the streets while we reevaluate the training program and
the policies to ensure something like this will never happen again,"
Silva said.
But, the incident has left the department open to criticism, which has had several of accidental K9 bites within the past years.
"They were not very responsible with that someone got injured," Davis said.
The
K9 has been with the Stockton Police Department for four years. The
dog will not be allowed to train during the police investigation.
