From David Richie:
A pit bull terrier was shot and killed Tuesday morning in Rancho Cordova as it attacked a Sacramento County sheriff's police dog, officials said Friday.
That makes three pit bulls killed by local law enforcement officers in less than a week - a "very rare" occurrence, said Detective Sgt. Pete James, spokesman for the Rancho Cordova Police Department.
The incident in Rancho Cordova occurred about 10:30 a.m. when Rancho Cordova police and a sheriff's K-9 unit went to a house on Glenmoore Drive, not far from the Rockingham police station. They had a no-bail felony warrant for a suspect identified as Gregory Lawrence Thorne, 38, James said.
When the officers knocked on the door, two pit bulls came out of a side yard through a hole in the fence. One of them attacked K-9 Ado and his handler shot the attacking dog, James said. The other dog did not take part in the attack and actually retreated during the melee. That dog was not harmed, James said.
Ado suffered several wounds around his eye but is expected to make full recovery.
On Wednesday, a sheriff's detective shot and killed two pit bull fugitives from the Sacramento County animal shelter during an incident at Motel 6 on College Town Drive. Brutus and Smokey were condemned to death after they attacked a utility company worker in June. But, before that death sentence could be carried out, someone broke into the animal shelter and stole them.
They were found Wednesday when sheriff's detectives went to the motel in search of their owner, Cynthia Peters, and her boyfriend Mark Parr. The dogs ran out of the motel room when Peters opened the door to the detectives. They attacked a maintenance worker who was walking by the room and one of the detectives shot them.
Peters and Parr are suspects in the animal shelter jailbreak but that incident is still being investigated and no charges have been filed against them in that case, officials said.
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