Cops shot and killed a pit bull after it bit a 9-year-old girl and several others in East Harlem yesterday.
The incident occurred at around 5:45 p.m. yesterday at the Jefferson Houses on East 115th Street. The dog was apparently offleash, and latched onto the little girl. Her mother and a Good Samaritan attempted to help her, but were also bitten. "The dog was attacking him. The guy was trying to stop it from biting the little girl, but the little girl was getting attacked for a while,” a witness told CBS 2 who witnessed the incident said. “It was around eight minutes of screaming."
Two officers showed up, one of whom fired at the dog and killed it. The girl and her mother suffered serious injuries and were taken to Harlem Hospital Center, but both are expected to survive. An officer was also treated at NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia University Medical Center after suffering a minor bite wound.
The little girl's grandmother witnessed the attack: "The grandma was on the floor screaming because she thought the dog killed her granddaughter,” a neighbor told the Daily News. "It bit her on her ribs, her arms. It was bad. It was really bad. I hope the little girl is OK." Cops have not yet located the dog's owner.
Earlier on Friday, at around 1:30 p.m. a 3-year-old girl was attacked by a pit bull at the Queens Center Mall in Elmhurst. She received 17 stitches and was vaccinated for rabies. Police say the dog belonged to a local panhandler, who left the scene with the animal after the attack.
