BOULDER, Colo. — CONTENT WARNING: This article contains details of an attack that may be disturbing to some readers.
Boulder Police are investigating after officers shot and killed a dog who attacked a man Sunday morning.
It happened just after 8 a.m. in the 3200-block of Palo Parkway.
Shawn West was at his home a few doors down when he heard a woman screaming outside.
“Screaming for help that her son was being killed, and I could just barely see him from the window being attacked by the pitbull,” West said. “The dog is mauling him, literally mauling him. Chunks of meat are being thrown off.”
West said it was a gruesome scene and the dog wasn’t letting up. That’s when he decided to grab two large knives from his kitchen.
“I lunged, I put all my weight into it, and I stabbed that dog,” West said. “I was going for the heart and the lungs. I don’t know how I missed. I really don’t.”
West said it caused to dog to stumble, but it didn’t stop him.
“He started coming after me,” he said.
Madeleine Gagne heard the commotion from across the street.
“He's latched on with this menacing kind of look on his face,” Gagne said. “Blood all over his mouth. I thought, ‘What's up with you? That's your owner.’”
Gagne did what she could until an officer arrived on scene.
“The dog almost takes the officer down,” Gagne said. “He like turns on him.”
“He fires that Taser, it hits the dog, and it stumbles,” West said. “I said, ‘That dog is coming at us again.’ The cop stands up, turns, shoots and fires. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.”
West said that still wasn’t enough to stop the dog.
“I've never ever seen an animal that would come back again and again and again the way that this dog did," he said.
As they began treating the victim, West said the dog got up again and came toward them.
“The cop turns, point blank, right in the head and put him down finally,” he said. “That's what stopped that damn dog.”
“The mother, she kept looking at me and she said, ‘We've owned him since he was a puppy. He's never done this,’” Gagne said.
In a post on social media, police said the dog posed a significant threat to multiple bystanders and less lethal measures were not successful.
The victim was taken to the hospital in critical condition due to injuries suffered in the attack.
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