GO INDY!!

indy

A police officer shot and wounded a pit bull that fatally mauled a neighbor's Chihuahua then lunged at the officer Monday, police said.

It was the third time in less than a week that a pit bull attacked an officer. For the second time, the officer shot the dog.

Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Officer Benjamin Owens said in a report that when he arrived on the 1700 block of East Kelly Street at 8:45 a.m. the pit bull had the Chihuahua in its mouth but the small dog was already was dead.

A man was holding the pit bull back from attacking bystanders but warned that he couldn't keep it back for long, Owens said in a report. Minutes later the snarling pit bull escaped and ran toward Owens.

"The pit bull then stood up with the small dog in its mouth still, and then began to charge me," Owens wrote in the report.

Owens fire twice at the pit bull but said he didn't kill it. Animal Care and Control officers took the dog away.

Last Thursday, an officer shot two pit bulls that had mauled a 23-year-old man on the Northwestside, then charged the officer when he arrived. That same day, an IMPF officer was bitten on the leg by a pit bull on the southwestside but was able to shake the dog loose.