Police Dog Tracking Gunman Bites Bystander

EVANSVILLE, Ind. – A police dog won’t be the star of the television show “Cops” anytime soon. A dog that was tracking a gunman bit a resident of a senior citizen center who was watching the search Wednesday, and the bite was caught on tape by a TV news crew.

John Terry, a resident of Senior World retirement community, did not require medical treatment, police said. Terry was sitting on an outdoor swing watching the excitement when the dog came up from behind and bit him on the right arm.

A camera crew from Evansville TV station WEHT that was taping the police search also got the bite on video.

Terry did not seem as upset about being bitten as some elderly women who saw it happen, said WEHT reporter Lindsay Gantner.

Evansville police Sgt. Stephanie Loehrlein said police dogs seldom bite bystanders but “dogs can make mistakes.”

“It doesn’t happen very often, but occasionally, we will have an incident,” she said.

Police searched the southside neighborhood after two men jumped out of separate cars, one man chasing the other and firing shots from a semiautomatic pistol.

A bullet hit at least one home, police said. One man was arrested on an attempted murder charge, while the other man was not immediately found.