The Ashville police officer who responded to last month’s fatal dog attack on 73-year-old Jo Echelbarger in Pickaway County asked the interim chief multiple times if he should put down the dog, newly released body camera footage shows.
As soon as the officer arrived at the scene Oct. 17, Apollo, a brown dog already deemed dangerous, charged at Officer Antonio Jester. Jester fired at the dog, sending it running down Kildow Court. Jester then turned his attention to the attack scene along a shared front walk to two adjacent condos.
A second dog, Echo, a pit bull mix, stood over the woman’s body on the walkway covered in blood. Her 84-year-old husband, Stanley, who suffers from Parkinson’s disease, begged police to shoot the dog and call for an ambulance.
“Both the dogs live there. The one is deemed dangerous by the dog warden because he attacked someone a few months ago,” Officer Antonio Jester told Acting Chief Daniel Mettler, who was standing a few feet away. “You want me to put the dog down?”
Mettler gave the go-ahead. Jester shot at Echo multiple times, but the dog retreated inside his owner’s condo next door to the Echelbarger’s place.
The first dog, Apollo, was still on the loose, running around the neighborhood and the field adjacent to a nearby school. Apollo attacked Courtney Johnson and her two dogs, killing one of them. Johnson dashed to safety with the other dog, hopping a fence to her sister’s backyard.
A Pickaway County Sheriff’s Department SUV ran over Apollo and officers shot him, police reports said.
Echelbarger died within minutes of the dog attack, according to her autopsy report.
She suffered a violent, vicious attack. The two dogs broke her neck, tore off her left ear and part of her right, nearly amputated her right thumb, ripped off most of her scalp and left bite wounds in her shoulders, forearms, abdomen, hand, hip and buttock, according to the autopsy report.
The dogs’ owners, Adam Withers and his mother Susan Withers, have pleaded not guilty to involuntary manslaughter and failure to confine a dangerous dog. They are being held in jail and are scheduled for a pretrial hearing on Dec. 20 in Pickaway County Common Pleas Court.
Ashville Police released the body camera footage in response to a public records request by The Columbus Dispatch.
Police find attacking dog dead next morning
The night of the Oct. 17 attack, a neighbor reported hearing people arguing and seeing a man and woman pacing the sidewalk outside the Kildow Court condos. The witness also said a man was shining a flashlight into the windows of Echelbarger’s condo.
Early Oct. 18, a witness reported seeing a “beaten dead dog laying under light post” and the grass and flowerbeds torn up.
Authorities later picked up the body of Echo, the second pit bull.
Laura Bischoff is a reporter for the USA TODAY Network Ohio Bureau, which serves the Columbus Dispatch, Cincinnati Enquirer, Akron Beacon Journal and 18 other affiliated news organizations across Ohio.
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