Police shoot pit bull after mauling

Five days after the Boston City Council passed comprehensive restrictions on pit bull ownership, police yesterday shot and killed an unlicensed pit bull that had mauled a 6-year-old boy in Dorchester.

Police last night said they were investigating yesterday's attack and had not yet filed any charges. Matski Brown, 33, who identified himself as the owner's brother, said he locked the 2-year-old dog, Joe, in a pen in the yard after the pit bull bit the boy on his backside and his right forearm. But when police arrived around 6 p.m. yesterday, the burly brown dog had slipped through a hole in the fence, barked at the officers from the porch, and then began approaching them.

When the dog reached the sidewalk outside the Geneva Avenue home, Police Sergeant Trent Holland gave an unidentified officer an order. "Take him out," he said.

From the street, according to a video of the incident taken by WBZ-TV, the officer leveled his weapon and fired two shots at the dog, which fell and began howling. About a minute later, with officers from Boston Animal Control on the scene, the officer approached the dog and fired a final shot into the animal. The dog stopped moving.

"It was dangerous," Captain Jim Hasson said last night at the scene. "Their alternatives were limited."

Hasson said the dog was blocking the path of paramedics heading to treat the boy, named Jamie, who he said had suffered superficial wounds and had been taken from the yard to the third floor of the three-family home, where he lives. Officers were waiting for a tranquilizer gun, Hasson added, when the dog approached them. The final shot was delivered for "humane reasons," he said.

After the shooting, Seth Gitell, spokesman for Mayor Thomas M. Menino, said the mayor intended to sign the sweeping City Council legislation "momentarily." The legislation will require pit bull owners to spay or neuter their dogs, muzzle them in public, and post signs outside their homes that they own pit bulls.

The City Council passed the legislation last week, four hours after an unleashed pit bull in South Boston attacked a 22-pound Shiba Inu. The pit bull did not release the smaller dog until a neighbor clubbed the dog over the head with a baseball bat. The pit bull was later euthanized.

The previous Friday, a pit bull attacked an exterminator and an animal control officer at a Hyde Park apartment complex.

The boy, whose last name could not be confirmed last night, was treated and released from Boston Medical Center. The officer who shot the dog was taken to Brigham and Women's Hospital for a medical exam, which is routine after city officers fire their weapons.

The dog's owner, identified by his brother as Cory Brown, could not be reached last night.

"I think it's very unfair what they did to him," said Matski Brown, who said he often looked after the dog, which he nicknamed "Beaver."

Nancy Flores, 39, a neighbor, was taken aback by the shooting. "Don't they have another way?" she said. "Did they have to use a gun to shoot the dog?"

Globe correspondents Martha Bartle, Kaitlin Thaney, and Justin Rebello contributed to this report.