There are widely conflicting stories about Monday’s police shooting of a yellow Labrador.
Denver police say someone flagged down a patrol car early Monday afternoon to report a vicious dog running through the grounds of Horace Mann School near West 42nd Avenue and Lipan Street.
Without releasing any details or an incident report, police spokeswoman Sharon Hahn would say only that the officer found the dog, that the dog attempted to attack the officer and that the officer shot it twice, killing it.
Originally, police said they had received three phone calls complaining about the dog.
But neighbor Seferino Quintana said the dog never attacked the officer, that the dog was running away from the officer when he shot it from about 15 feet away.
“It was bad. That dog shouldn’t have been shot,” said Quintana, 68, a retired equipment operator at Denver International Airport who has lived in the neighborhood for about 40 years.
Doug Kelly, director of Denver Animal Care and Control, said his office received a call that had been transferred at 3:34 p.m., and dispatched an animal officer.
He said normally “if a dog is aggressive or vicious, our officer will try to get a hold of the dog” using a capture pole — a pole up to 6 feet long with a rope loop on the end.
He said animal-control officers are not armed and do not shoot animals.
“The capture pole is the best tool to protect the officers,” he said.
