Vicious Dog Attack In Jamestown Ends With Gunfire
Jamestown, CA – A Jamestown man who was attacked by a dog early this morning was seriously injured, and the dog remains on the loose after being shot twice.
The Tuolumne County Sheriff’s Office was dispatched at around 4:44 a.m. to Golden Dove Lane in Jamestown to investigate a dog attack. The type of canine was not disclosed. While animal control was also notified, officers could not make it to the scene for an “extended time,” so deputies headed there, according to sheriff’s officials.
When the first deputy arrived, he found a badly mauled man on the ground, desperately holding back the dog by its collar. Sheriff’s officials disclosed, “The man was covered in blood and yelled to the deputy for help because he could no longer hold back the animal. The deputy managed to separate the two and contain the animal by keeping himself between the dog and the victim.”
Within minutes, another deputy and a Sonora police officer arrived. They tried to capture the dog by placing a catch pole loop around the dog’s neck, but that caused the dog to move aggressively toward the officer. The deputy then fired his weapon, with a bullet hitting the dog and making it run toward the deputy. That is when another deputy fired his gun, also striking the dog, which ran away and has not yet been recovered.
“The deputies ultimately were required to engage in lethal force and ended up opening fire on the dog after all efforts failed to capture the dog,” stated sheriff’s spokesperson Sgt. Jake Ostoich. He added, “Any time an animal bites a human, the law requires efforts be made to capture the animal and quarantine it for a period of time. The quarantine time is used to observe the animal and its behavior to help determine if it has rabies or to determine if it needs to be deemed as a vicious animal.”
The man was flown away to an outside trauma center, suffering from severe injuries. The case is being forwarded to the Tuolumne County Animal Control Office for follow-up.
