A dog fight ended with a hail of bullets in a Philadelphia
suburb, leaving residents shocked and looking for answers.
The incident started on Friday at around noon when a stray
dog got into a pickup truck at a red light in Chester, Pa., and began fighting
with another pooch, NBCPhiladelphia.com reported.
Cops were called when the dogs couldn't be separated, and
when they arrived, witnesses were stunned at the reaction. One officer shot at
the dogs five times with a pistol, then another fired one blast from a shotgun.
Both dogs were killed.
And this all went down right in front of Chester High
School.
Tehran Freeman, a dog owner himself who lives down the block
from the shooting, captured the incident on video with his cell phone and was
outraged at the handling of the situation.
"I don't care how bad they try to make Chester seem,
this is not a war zone, you don't do things like that," he told
NBCPhiladelphia.com.
"I thought them as the police should be held to a
higher standard and would have some type of procedure for breaking it up than
actually pulling out your pistols in front of the high school."
Freeman told NBCNews.com that the bigger, more aggressive
dog seemed to be a pit bull and had a leash, but the other smaller dog didn't.
It was unclear who the owners were.
He said when he saw the police the "last thing that I
thought would happen" is that they would open fire with their guns.
"It wasn't secure at all, I know bullets can ricochet
and anything else -- you're trying to shoot two animals in the back of a metal
vehicle, that bullet can go anywhere."
Chester police told NBCPhiladelphia.com that the incident
was under investigation and at the time the animal control officer in the city
was unavailable.