Less than a week after a Long Beach Police Department dog died a hero, another Long Beach Police Department dog — this one retired — died in disgrace.
A 20-year-old man was being treated for serious but non- life-threatening injuries Tuesday after being attacked in Eastvale in Riverside County by a German shepherd that turns out to have been a retired Long Beach Police Department police dog.
The dog was eventually captured and destroyed. Eastvale is north of Corona near the I-15 freeway.
The Riverside County Department of Animal Services says the victim saw the dog wandering loose shortly before 11 p.m. Sunday and brought the animal a bowl of water on Ruby Giant Court, just off Prairie Smoke Road.
After drinking it, the dog put its front paws on the man’s chest but then attacked him, biting his left bicep area, his left leg and ankle, then dragged him into into the street, according to Animal Services. The man’s relatives and friends tried punching and kicking the dog so it would release him, and some men stabbed the dog with steak knives, a statement said.
An ambulance took the bitten man to Corona Regional Medical Center, where he was treated for non-life-threatening injuries, according to John Welsh of Animal Services. His name has not been released.
The scene was very different last Tuesday in Long Beach when officers struggled with a suspect and the suspect produced a knife.
“Credo,” a Long Beach Police Department dog, had been fighting with the suspect. When the knife was brought out, an officer fired a round that struck both the suspect and Credo. Both the suspect and the dog died, and the dog was given full honors by the department.
But in the Riverside County incident this past weekend, animal control Officer Bill Luna said he spotted the offending German shepherd after the attack lying on a nearby lawn, approached it, and the dog “sat to attention. Luna extended his control stick and looped the end of it around the wounded dog’s neck.
“I walked him to my truck and, with one command, the dog, despite its injuries, leaped into one of my truck compartments,” Luna said. “That dog must have recognized me and the uniform as someone of authority. He didn’t show any aggression toward me at all.”
The dog was taken to an emergency animal hospital, but was later euthanized because its wounds were too severe.
A microchip embedded in the dog was then discovered, animal control officials said.
The dog worked for the Long Beach Police Department, said Long Beach police spokeswoman Nancy Pratt, who did not know when the dog was retired, the Riverside Press-Enterprise reported. Typically, a police dog is adopted by the officer who was its handler. At that point, the department severs all ties with the animal, Pratt said.
–Staff and wire reports