GILROY
– A rotweiler’s angry owner says he plans to sue the city over
the killing of his wandering dog by a city police officer last
Tuesday morning. The officer said he shot the 150-pound dog after
it charged him. The owner thinks the officer used much more force
than was necessary.
GILROY – A rotweiler’s angry owner says he plans to sue the city over the killing of his wandering dog by a city police officer last Tuesday morning. The officer said he shot the 150-pound dog after it charged him. The owner thinks the officer used much more force than was necessary.
Mark Oliveira’s family owned the 3-year-old male rotweiler, named Schwartz, and a female rotweiler it escaped with. Neither dog had ever even shown its teeth to anyone before, he said.
“They had not one drop of violence in them,” Oliveira said.
Police and the man who reported the dog dispute this, saying the rotweiler was aggressively trying to barricade the man in his house.
Oliveira said the police officer should have used Mace on the dog instead of shooting it or waited for a professional animal-control officer to show up.
The dog was six blocks away from home when it was shot.
The two rotweilers escaped their 1020 Third St. yard through a hole in the fence, Oliveira said.
Police declined to state the officer’s name or how long he’d been on the force.
