Police mistakenly shot and killed a pit bull in the Bronx today while responding to a domestic dispute call. Lillian Martinez told the Post that she called police in the evening on Feb. 18 during a heated verbal argument with her husband, Anthony; cops had been called to the home for domestic violence at least once before. Cops were greeted at the door by their four-year-old red-nosed pit bull, Loc: “My husband heard the echo of the dog barking and clapped his hands twice. Before the dog could respond to him, there was one shot, then a second shot. My husband said he was shot in the head.”
This is certainly not the first such incident of its kind: back in July 2006, cops shot and killed a pit bull while responding to a landlord-tenant dispute at a Bronx apartment building. And it isn't just dogs who are the victims of itchy trigger fingers: cops mistakenly shot the elderly father of a suspect while executing a warrant last month. But if you want to be really horrified, the Atlantic has a video of cops raiding a home looking for drugs, only to shoot two dogs in front of a seven-year-old.
But it definitely does seem like pit bulls, who were responsible for the most number of bites in the city last year, do get the short end of the stick in many of these types of situations. A LI man shot and killed a four-year-old pit bull who was off his leash last May. Of course, when people use their pit bulls as weapons, it doesn't persuade politicians who are anti-pit bull that they aren't dangerous.
