A 42-year-old woman is reported to have been mauled to death by her dog at a home in Cincinnati, Ohio, on Aug. 22 after she began having a seizure.
The dog was found standing over her dead body before turning toward police and charging at them. Police shot the dog, and it died near its owner-Della Riley whom it had attacked.
The Associated Press said the dog was a pit bull, citing police sources. Another media reported the dog was a mixed-breed.
Earlier in the day, Riley’s son had run across the street to call for help, according to neighbor Jon Seymoure, WCPO reported. The boy is four years old, according to WLWT5.
The woman who made the 911 call declined to give her name, but told WKRC: “[The boy] said he was getting his dad because his momma was having a seizure.”
The Cincinnati Fire Department (CFD) received the call regarding “a person having a seizure” at Della Riley’s residential address.
Upon arrival, CFD personnel said they witnessed “a female being attacked by a dog inside the residence,” and called for help from the Cincinnati Police Department (CPD).
When police arrived at the home, they found a dog standing over a woman who appeared to be unresponsive by that time. The dog “aggressively charged” toward them, at which point police shot and killed the dog, a police statement read.
One of the bullets that police fired at the dog ricocheted off the floor after going through a nearby mattress—and struck Riley’s abdomen.
The cause of death was determined to be “trauma sustained by the victim who had been viciously mauled by the dog,” according to investigations made by the Hamilton County Coroner’s Office, the police statement read.
— Cincinnati Police Department (@CincyPD) August 23, 2018
Seymoure told WCPO that Riley was known to have had seizures in the past, and perhaps the latest seizure had scared or provoked the dog.
“I don’t know. It’s sad that your own dog can turn against you in a snap like that,” Seymoure told WCPO. “It’s sad to think [the boy] don’t have a mother anymore.”
The young boy has a father, who was Riley’s boyfriend, who was at work during the dog attack.
“It’s just tragic to come home to that,” Seymoure told WCPO. “To be at work all day, and then you come home to something like this. I’d never wish that on anybody.”
Riley and her boyfriend owned another dog—it was taken to SPCA, and is not the same breed as the dog that attacked Riley, WLWT5 reported.
Police confirmed the boy was taken into child protective services, WLWT reported.
“They was a cool family,” Seymoure said, Fox19 reported. “They was just trying to make they life work that’s all. They ain’t bother nobody, they sat outside like everybody else. They kids played with everybody else kids.”
A neighbor told WKRC that the boy was asking “heartbreaking” questions.
“He kept asking me, like, ‘When is Mommy coming? Where mommy at,” the neighbor told WKRC. “And I couldn’t even tell the baby anything.”
