Dog shot to death after woman attacked

VERMILION — A cop was forced to shoot and kill a dog Sunday after it attacked a woman. Police were called to a home just before 8 p.m. in the 1100 block of West River Road by homeowner Joel Peters, who said two dogs got into his yard and started to attack his dog, then turned on a female neighbor who tried to break it up. The woman, Rene Smith, was taken to the hospital by ambulance with several bite wounds and a fractured arm. When police arrived, they could hear a woman screaming for help from behind a back yard shed and dogs barking. The first officer on scene said he could not see the woman and could only see one dog, a brown pit bull, approaching the shed and growling. He drew his weapon and pointed it at the ground when another neighbor began to call to the dog through the fence. The pit bull started to move toward the fence when he noticed the officer in the yard. The dog then approached the officer, growling and barking. The officer yelled "stay," but the dog continued to approach. "When the pit bull was approximately 4 feet away from me, and fearing for my safety due to the situation, I fired one round," the report of the incident stated. The dog, shot in the head, collapsed immediately. Police found Smith lying in the mud, trapped between the fence and the shed, holding her dog, Bo, a Labrador-pit bull mix. Smith sustained multiple puncture wounds from bites from both her own dog, which she had jumped the fence to retrieve, and the pit bull. Peters told police he had gone into his back yard to grill, accompanied by his dog, a Labrador. The dog went behind the shed and he heard barking. Bo and the pit bull began fighting with Peters' dog when Smith entered the yard. Peters was able to get his dog back into his home and Smith was attempting to secure Bo when Bo bit her and then the pit bull began biting her. Emergency medical personnel responded as well as other officers. Smith was taken by ambulance to the hospital for treatment while police tracked down the pit bull's owners, who arrived home shortly after the incident. All three dogs lived close to each other, and all three have fenced yards, but Bo — and the pit bull, named "Baby Dog" or "Beast" — appeared to have pushed under the fences to get into Peters' yard. The pit bull's owners, Courtney Vaughn and Christopher Shreves, on Hollyview Drive did not fault the police. One of the responding officers had once lived in the neighborhood and was familiar with the dog. Shreves told police he had previously said that if the dog "had ever started to hurt anyone to not be afraid to put it down." Shreves told police he raised Baby Dog from a pup and at one time had to entrust a friend with the dog for a time. He said he took the dog back after finding out it had been beaten with a bat and children had shot it with Nerf guns. He told police the dog may have reacted with aggression after seeing the officer's service weapon, which may have looked like the toy guns. Vaccination records could not be provided for the dog, which mandated that the Erie County Health Department would test it for rabies, said Police Chief Chris Hartung. However, health department officials said they could not check for rabies because the gunshot destroyed the dog's brain and the dog's body was released to its owners. "We definitely don't like stuff like this to happen that's for sure, but given the situation, with someone pretty badly wounded and another dog injured, it did," he said. Contact Rini Jeffers at (440) 329-7155 or rinijeffers@gmail.com.