A baby was seriously wounded in north Minneapolis earlier this week after being mauled by a dog, which also attacked the child's mother when she tried to intervene to save the child's life, according to police and community leaders.
The incident occurred just before 10 p.m. Tuesday in the 3300 block of N. Penn Avenue, according to a police incident report. The report says that officers were called to the address for an "animal call" and found the victims in critical condition when they arrived.
Lisa Clemons, a civilian member of the police department's crisis response team, says she was told the child's mother suffered serious injuries to her hands when she tried to free her baby from the dog's jaw; the extent of the baby's wounds weren't immediately known.
"It's always a tragedy when anybody gets attacked by a dog, but it's even more of a tragedy when it's a child, an 8-month-old child, who can't defend themselves in any way," Clemons said.
Anti-violence activist K.G. Wilson, another member of the crisis response team, said that he was told the dog was a pit bull.
Casper Hill, a spokesman for the city, confirmed that Animal Care and Control took possession of the dog after the attack and later euthanized it, but said he couldn't say more because the case was still considered open.
In an unrelated incident on Thursday, police shot and killed a dog while serving a high-risk warrant at a residence in the 4100 block of Chicago Avenue, according to department spokesman John Elder. He said officers were informed in a pre-raid briefing that there were several dogs in the home, but one of the canines "thwarted the mitigation measures and was aggressive to officers upon entry."
"Officers tried nonlethal means to gain distance from the animal but those efforts proved unsuccessful," Elder said in a statement. "Officers were forced to shoot the dog."
He said several firearms were recovered during the raid.
The incident marked the second police shooting of a dog in recent weeks.
On April 9, officers were dispatched to a report of a dog bite in the 3700 block of N. Bryant Avenue. An officer was walking around to the back of a house when he encountered a dog and shot it multiple times as it came toward him, according to body camera footage of the incident that was released this week.
