LAUREL — A neighbor near where a Laurel man was attacked by a K-9 on Thursday morning said the dog belonged to an officer who lives nearby. The victim, identified by officials as 51-year old Mark Raty, was taken to a hospital by the Laurel Ambulance Service with serious but not life-threatening wounds.
It was unclear Friday if he was still hospitalized, and authorities investigating the incident were not available to provide more information.
Raty's wife said Friday they're "taking it one day at a time." She declined further comment.
One of the witnesses to the attack that lasted for more than 15 minutes was Laurel Fire Chief JW Hopper.
"I wasn't sure what was going to happen, because the dog was not stopping," Hopper said Friday.
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The attack happened at about 8 a.m. on Wyoming Avenue.
Hopper said Raty was likely preparing to put up his Christmas lights when he was attacked by the dog.
At the time of the attack, authorities believed it was a neighborhood dog, but it was later identified by Laurel police to be a Belgian Malinois K-9 belonging to the Montana Highway Patrol.
Hopper described the scene as chaotic.
"The dog was not giving up. We had an ambulance lieutenant that was assisting also," said Hopper.
Hopper said non-lethal efforts were tried, including deploying a Taser and using an animal control catch pole, but neither was successful.
An officer eventually struck the dog twice on the head and killed it.
Hopper said the officer had no other choice but to kill the dog: "In my mind, I was thinking, 'Is he going to switch and come at us?' I thought that we were all probably going to end up getting bit at some point."
According to another neighbor, the dog and handler live on the same block.
As MTN reported several months ago, MHP K-9s are trained in Boulder before being put to work.
"The K-9 has proven time and time again to be one of the most useful tools we have," Sgt. Shad Andersen, who supervises the training program, said at the time.
The K-9s are trained to obey only their handler.
Hopper said it was clear at the scene in Laurel that the trained police dog was not obeying any orders.
"For whatever reason, he kept going for the individual he had originally bit. He never did really come at any of the rest of us," Hopper said.
Hopper said the incident was highly unusual.
"It was new for all of us. None of us had ever been in that situation. I've never been around a dog that was that aggressive," Hopper said.
