The two pit bulls attacked quickly when Berwyn police responded Thursday to 911 calls that a small dog had been mauled and its owner bitten.
One leaped over a 5-foot-high fence in a front yard while the other sailed over the fence in the backyard. Officers shot and killed both dogs, authorities said.
“There were so many shots,” said Mary Noriega, 76, who lives across the street.
A Berwyn officer was treated and released from a hospital after suffering minor leg injuries, possibly from something sent flying during the shooting, but not from a bullet, police said.
“The pit bulls were very aggressive, very dangerous. It was an extremely dangerous situation,” said Berwyn police Chief James Ritz.
The woman who tried to protect her small dog was treated for injuries including a bite from the pit bull that attacked her dog, Ritz said in a news release.
The woman was walking her dog around 7:40 a.m. near 27th Street and Ridgeland Avenue when a pit bull ran up, according to Luis Lopez, who lives across the street. It had gone under a fence to get out of its yard, authorities said.
The pit bull was known in the neighborhood for attacking other dogs, so the woman scooped her dog into her arms, witnesses said.
The pit bull attacked her and mauled the small dog, killing it, Lopez said.
Then it ran back into a yard, where there was another pit bull, police said.
Police received numerous 911 calls about the attack, Ritz said.
The dog that jumped the front fence started after both officers and children who were walking to school, Ritz said in the release.
Officers tried to subdue both dogs but had to shoot them, Ritz said.
“It was just chaos,” he said.
Police were investigating whether to charge the dogs’ owners, Ritz said. The dogs were taken to an animal hospital to be tested for rabies and other diseases, he said.
Ritz could not confirm whether police have been called to the property before.
A man who came to the door of the two-story home in the 2600 block of Ridgeland Avenue declined to talk to a reporter. Blood stains spattered the sidewalk in front of the home.
Freelance reporter Joe Ruzich also contributed.
Liam Ford is a Tribune reporter; Victoria Pierce is a freelance reporter.
