The call came in around 10:30 a.m. on Friday, Jan. 10, 2025: someone on Strathmore Circle in Irondequoit had been bitten, and the dog was still loose. When Irondequoit officers arrived, according to Police Chief Scott Peters, they found a 14-month-old girl with a large wound on her leg, bitten by a neighbor's dog. Officers gave her first aid until an ambulance arrived.
The dog itself was already contained. Police said additional officers located the owners and determined the dog had been secured in a vehicle. Irondequoit's animal control officer was called to the scene to impound it, and the decision was made to let the owners handle the animal rather than a stranger.
"The animal control officer talked to the owners and thought it might have been a little bit better for them to try and get the dog into the back of the van," Peters told reporters. "Just because, a lot of times, animals will listen to their owners before they will a stranger."
That is when, according to Peters, the dog slipped its collar and attacked the animal control officer, biting him on the calf as he tried to kick the animal away. An Irondequoit police officer then fired seven rounds into the dog. Peters said the shots came once there was enough distance between the dog and the animal control officer.
The dog died at the scene. Its remains were impounded and sent for rabies testing, because the animal was neither licensed nor vaccinated.
Both people bitten were treated at a hospital and released. The animal control officer's injury was not described further. Peters said the toddler's injuries were not life-threatening but would leave scarring: "She's got a sizable injury on her leg," he said. "She's going to be able to see these scars and remember them for the rest of her life."
The entire public account of this shooting comes from the police department. Neither WXXI News nor WHAM reported any comment from the dog's owner, and the dog's name, age and breed were not reported. Peters described a standing understanding about the use of firearms on animals: "We've always been allowed to use deadly physical force against the dogs," he said.
The accountability record
No review, internal investigation or discipline connected to the shooting was reported by either outlet. The officer who fired has not been publicly named. Peters said the department would release body-worn camera footage after redactions to protect the victims' privacy; the reporting does not say whether that release ever happened.
The only sanction described in either story ran the other direction: Peters said the dog's owner would be cited for keeping an unlicensed dog and failing to secure it. No lawsuit has been reported.
Seven rounds fired in an apartment complex parking area, at an animal already surrounded by officers, generated no reported inquiry into whether that was the necessary number, or whether an animal control impound that ends in gunfire is a training failure. There is no national reporting requirement for police shootings of dogs, so unless a department volunteers the review, there is nothing to look up.