Pictured is a photo of four-year old TigerT, who was fatally wounded by multiple gunshots rendered by an Owego Police officer on July 31 between the area of Main Street and Spencer Avenue in Owego, N.Y. (Facebook Photo)
On July 31, 2015, according to reports released by the Owego Police Department (OPD) and the owner of a four and a half year old pit-bull named TigerT, an incident in which the said dog escaped from his enclosed area at his home ended in tragedy, with shots fired by OPD, several dog bites that ensued, and a community that was split with controversy over the scene of events.
Upon learning of the incident, the Owego Pennysaver immediately began investigating the events that occurred, and developed the story, online, as information became available.
The first interview, with he dog’s owner, Alfred Thornton, age 48, of Owego, N.Y., told of a tragic situation in which his dog, TigerT, jumped their family’s fence and was running loose. Alfred Thornton was not home at the time.
According to Alfred Thornton’s account, his son, Al Thornton IV, was walking TigerT’s young puppy at the time, and stated that this may have prompted TigerT to escape over the fence.
The Owego Pennysaver received an account from Alfred Thornton as we awaited a formal release or information from OPD, who did not respond immediately.
“I heard two gun shots, and started running over towards Spencer Avenue,” said Alfred Thornton. He also received a text message from his wife to alert him of what was taking place.
According to Alfred Thornton, who was on North Avenue at the time of the incident, TigerT was mostly likely on Main Street near Chemung Canal Bank when he heard shots fired. Alfred Thornton assumed this as a blood trail from the dog led from Chemung Canal over to Spencer Avenue.
Alfred Thornton, during an early morning phone interview on Aug. 1, stated that he ran over to Spencer Avenue where his dog was lying on Charles Lohmeyer’s porch, with critical injuries from the bullet wounds.
Alfred Thornton stated that the OPD officer told him to step back.
A tearful Alfred Thornton, in a phone interview on Saturday morning, stated, “They wouldn’t even let me be with my dog as he was taking his last breath.”
Later, in interviews with WBNG 12, Alfred Thornton asked for the resignation of the unnamed officer that shot TigerT.
By Saturday afternoon, OPD released a statement regarding the incident.
According to Police Chief Karen Vinti, on Friday, July 31, 2015, unidentified officers of the Owego Police Department (OPD) were dispatched to the area of 59 Spencer Ave. in the Village of Owego for an aggressive dog who broke through a fence and was running at large.
While enroute, officers were flagged down near the intersection of Main and Church Street by Steve Jackson, who we later interviewed. According to the OPD report, Jackson, who was not identified in the release, was bleeding from his mouth.
Jackson told OPD officers, according to Chief Vinti, that he and his dog had been attacked by a dog that lunged up and bit him in the face.
Chief Vinti’s report further explained that OPD officers immediately located a male youth holding the dog by its rear legs, and as one officer tossed a leash to the boy the dog broke loose and attacked the other officer, biting him in his left hand and knocking him to the ground.
After a brief struggle, according to police reports, the dog broke loose and charged the second officer who then fired two shots at the dog, striking him in his torso. Officers reported that the dog ran towards Spencer Avenue, where he resided with his owner, and that the officer followed.
According to the police report, the dog (TigerT) stopped and came towards the officer in an aggressive manner at which time the dog was shot for a third time.
The dog wandered onto a neighboring porch, which we learned earlier in the a.m. on Saturday, Aug. 1, belonged to Charles Lohmeyer, and died shortly after from his injuries.
The dog owner, according to the police report, originally left the scene but was later located in an apartment on North Avenue and taken into custody.
The police reported that Alfred E. Thornton, 48, of 64 Spencer Ave. was arrested under Article 26, the New York State Ag and Market Law, for allowing a Dangerous Dog, a misdemeanor; and Dog Running at Large, a violation of Village Ordinance.
Thornton was issued appearance tickets and released.
According to the report received by Chief Vinti, the unidentified officer was treated at the scene and later at the hospital where he received several stitches for his injuries.
Chief Vinti also noted in her report that the investigation is continuing and further charges are pending.
On Monday, with questions still remaining, we reached out to Steve Jackson, of Owego, N.Y., who was the man (unidentified) in OPD’s report that was the main witness to the scene.
On Tuesday, we interviewed Steve Jackson to gain his account as to what led to this tragic event for all involved.
According to Jackson, at approximately 5:45 p.m. on July 31, he was walking with his girlfriend, Autumn Edwards, and their three dogs in the area of Main Street in Owego, heading east.
Jackson continued, “As we approached the corner of Main and Church Streets, we noticed a boy about half a block ahead of us (60-70 yards away) screaming and crying. I could see a boy on a bicycle next to him. Thinking he fell off his bike we were focused on the boy yelling and we could see him holding a puppy and trying desperately to hold onto a larger dog by the back.
Jackson described the dog as being approximately 65 to 75 pounds, and that the dog (TigerT) had the markings similar to those of a tiger striped Pitt Bull.
Jackson then stated that he and his girlfriend would try to avoid the boy and the dogs and head south on Church Street.
Jackson then stated, “I crossed the street with two of the dogs (the theater side), and Autumn, waiting for traffic, remained with our older nine year old dog Boo who takes a little more time to move on the opposite side.”
Jackson continued, “As I waited for her, I heard her scream and I could see the adult dog that the boy was holding onto running at her at full speed from the boy’s [Al Thornton IV] last location. This was not a playful run; this was a growling aggressive dog closing in on her.”
The dog she was holding, according to Jackson, stepped in front of her and both dogs engaged in fighting. Jackson stated that he then ran over and had to struggle to break-up the fight.
The boy, according to Jackson, was running after the dog, got a hold of him and was apologizing profusely and was crying. Jackson and his girlfriend then moved their dogs up further on Main Street where the boy had just come from and checked their dog Boo for any bites and blood.
As they continued moving to distance themselves, according to Jackson, they could hear the boy screaming, “I’m so sorry mister, I’m so sorry, he got loose, it’s not my fault. I’m sorry (sobs).”
Jackson then turned to his girlfriend and said, “I can’t leave him like that, he has no way to get that dog home and if someone else comes up with another dog what’s going to happen?”
Jackson stated that he then took a leash they had for one of their dogs and walked back down Main Street towards the boy. According to Jackson, the young boy [Al Thornton IV] was sitting and sobbing, holding the puppy and trying to hold the adult dog – pleading with him to stop pulling.
Jackson asked him if there was someone that could come help him, but by that point, according to Jackson, the young boy was disturbingly distraught and refused help.
In the process, combined with the young boy’s frustration and anger, Jackson stated that TigerT broke loose from the young boy’s grip, and jumped up at Jackson with one leap.
Jackson further explained, “The dog bearing its teeth jumps at me in one leap (I’m standing straight-up) at my face. I catch the dog by the head as his momentum carries him into my face where he bites my chin and lip. With his teeth gnashing, I threw the dog away from me as far as I could and prepared for him to come back at me while I was backing-up. The dog hit the ground and was dazed and confused. The boy was then able to grab the dog by the hind legs. I then turned to head east on Main Street.”
Within minutes, Jackson noticed that blood was dripping onto his shirt, and then realized that he had been bitten and needed to call police in the event that the dog was rabid.
Jackson dialed 9-1-1 and was pressing send when he saw an OPD car. He waved them down, and OPD asked him what happened.
“I was just bitten in the face by a dog,” said Jackson. “A Pitt Bull,” the officer asked, according to Jackson. Wondering how he knew the breed, Jackson stated, “Yeah”.
OPD then asked Jackson where the dog went, and he told OPD that the dog was with the young boy at the end of the street. According to Jackson, OPD turned around and quickly drove to the spot where they could see the boy.
As the two officers got out of their car you could hear the boy screaming, according to Jackson, and people were starting to congregate around the area. One officer, according to Jackson, went to the left and the other officer went to the right, keeping a distance from the boy and the dog of about 15 feet and about 10 feet from each other.
According to Jackson, one of the officers, holding a black dog harness, asked the boy to see if he could get the harness on TigerT.
The distraught young boy, according to Jackson, was screaming, and that is when things took a tragic turn.
Jackson stated, “I hear the boy scream at him and the next thing I see is the dog taking two huge leaps and is immediately at the head area of one of the OPD officers. The officer raises his arm to block the dog and the momentum of the dog takes both the officer and the dog to the ground.”
Jackson then continued to explain, “The other officer was trying to figure out a way to break them up and I could see he was reaching for his gun. After eight to ten seconds, the first officer was able to finally break free from the dog and at that point the dog turned towards the other officer with the same look of aggression and started towards him. That officer raised his weapon and fired a shot.”
Jackson assumed he [the officer] shot the dog because the dog spun and then headed right back towards the officer who then fired a second shot. Jackson said this spun the dog the other way and he got up on the sidewalk and ran towards Spencer Avenue.
With Jackson’s girlfriend and dogs in the wounded dog’s path, the dog ran parallel to them. Jackson was thinking, “Here is a wounded dog, is he going to attack us now?” Fortunately the dog ran past them, according to Jackson, and onto Spencer Avenue. Jackson noted that he has no further account of what happened after the injured dog ran down Spencer Avenue.
Jackson received treatment by Emergency Medical Technician’s, and although they recommended a stitch or two on his lip, he did not do this. Jackson was, however, inoculated later for rabies, in the event that TigerT was rabid.
Jackson stated that he went to see the other officers and offered them a statement of events that occurred; he also wanted to check on their condition.
Jackson also stated that he later found out that they knew the breed of the dog when they happened upon him because someone had already called in that an aggressive Pitt bull was running at large.
Jackson also tried to console the young boy (Al Thornton IV), unsuccessfully, but stated in his interview that he is concerned that the young boy had to witness this and hopes that he will heal from the trauma experienced.
We learned from the OPD report that the mortally wounded dog, after several shots fired, was rendered one last shot to his head after it came towards one of the officers, once more, in an aggressive manner.
We also learned on Saturday that the dog collapsed on the porch of Charles Lohmeyer of Spencer Avenue, and died shortly after. Lohmeyer was not home at the time, but another resident who was home at that time witnessed the events and offered Lohmeyer a full account when he returned home shortly following the chain of events.
Lohmeyer, when he returned home to the “chaos”, as he described it in an interview on Saturday, Aug. 1, said that a pool of blood remains on the sidewalk at Spencer and Main Streets, across from a youth bible study that was taking place outdoors.
“This action terrorized at least fifty children in the area,” said Lohmeyer. He also noted that he did not think the dog was aggressive, personally, and that he often would have visits from the dog at his own home.
This tragic situation polarized the community on social media, as there were many unanswered questions – with one single question remaining, “What made TigerT become aggressive and attack passersby on July 31, 2015?
