Quantcast

NYPD officer fatally shoots dog, accidentally wounds two people in Queens

NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton said more officers will be equipped with potent pepper spray meant to incapacitate dogs after an officer fatally shot a pit bull on Wednesday, Dec. 2, 2015.
NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton said more officers will be equipped with potent pepper spray meant to incapacitate dogs after an officer fatally shot a pit bull on Wednesday, Dec. 2, 2015. Photo Credit: Getty Images / Anna Webber

A police officer fatally shot a pit bull and accidentally wounded two other people when he responded to a fight between a landlord and tenant in Queens on Wednesday morning, police said.

The shooting prompted Commissioner Bill Bratton to pledge that more officers will be equipped with potent pepper spray that can incapacitate dogs.

The officers encountered the dogs when they responded to a report of a fight at about 10 a.m. on Rockaway Boulevard, near 86th Street, in the Ozone Park neighborhood. Three men were fighting over property and the two dogs were attacking one of the men, said Chief of Department James O’Neill.

The officers tried to intervene and the dogs turned toward them and appeared to start to attack the officers, O’Neill said. One of the officers fired six times, hitting one of the dogs and two of the men — one in the wrist and the other in the right knee.

All three men were in custody Wednesday afternoon.

Bratton said the department is trying to give officers more options so they don’t have to discharge their weapons. He said they have increased the number of Tasers and are re-equipping the pepper spray officers carry with a more potent variety.

“So far, 6,000 of our officers have received the new mixture,” he said. “And that mixture is intended to allow them to use pepper spray to disable the dog. What they currently carry would not incapacitate a dog.”