Early Tuesday morning, (Feb. 21), a Fenton woman’s pit bull bit a Jefferson County Sheriff’s deputy who was responding to a call in the 700 block of Caliph Drive in the Fenton area of Jefferson County.
Deputies were dispatched to the residence at 3:53 a.m., after the woman called 911 Dispatch and reported that numerous people were trying to get into her home, the Sheriff’s Office reported.
When deputies arrived, however, they found no signs of forced entry or any other evidence to substantiate an attempted burglary. After interviewing the woman, they decided she was having a mental health crisis and needed to be transported to a hospital for psychological evaluation, the report said.
When the officer attempted to handcuff the woman, however, her dog bit the deputy’s forearm, Cpl. Matthew Moore said.
“Whenever we transport someone, for whatever reason, if they are going in the patrol car, we handcuff them,” he said. “When the deputy went to do that, that is when he was bitten.”
The officer was able to free himself from the animal, he said.
“He yanked his arm from the dog’s mouth,” Moore said.
The deputy, who is 26 and has less than a year of service with the Sheriff’s Office, was transported to an area hospital with non-life threatening injuries where he was kept overnight for observation, Moore said.
Jefferson County Animal Control responded to the scene, took possession of the dog and quarantined it at the county’s animal control facility.