New details emerge in dog attack that left Elgin woman hospitalized

An Elgin woman who was mauled last week by the family dog remained hospitalized on Tuesday with severe injuries to her arms.

Meanwhile, Elgin police are praising the officer who shot and killed the large pit bull to stop the Thursday attack and applied tourniquets to the woman’s upper arms to stop her severe bleeding.

“The first responding officers are to be commended as their quick thinking and actions undoubtedly helped those involved in this incident,” Police Chief Ana Lalley said in a statement Tuesday.

The attack happened shortly before 5 p.m. Thursday on the 900 block of High Street, according to reports released Monday by Elgin police.

According to the police reports, the woman’s partner told authorities that a young child had let the dog out the front door of their home.

One neighbor said the dog ran onto her porch and then into a car occupied by two men. She said the dog appeared happy, wagging its tail, but the men yelled for the owners to get it out of the car.

When the owners tried to retrieve the dog, someone yelled at the man about having the dog loose.

At that point, the dog became aggressive and started biting his hands, the man later told police. The man jumped on a car to escape, and his partner tried to leash the dog.

But the dog attacked the woman, and neighbors said the dog dragged her like “a rag doll,” according to reports.

When the police officer arrived, the dog was on top of the woman, gripping and shaking one of her arms. He yelled at the dog and kicked it.

He then shot the dog in a hind quarter. The dog got off the woman but turned toward the officer, who then shot it in the head, according to the officer’s report.

The officer applied tourniquets to the woman’s upper arms to control severe bleeding. She was taken first to an Elgin hospital before being transferred to a Level 1 trauma center to repair severe muscle and other damage.

“The training and philosophy of the department is what officers rely on to resolve critical incidents safely with the goal of always protecting and serving our community,” Lalley said. “I am proud of the officers’ actions and hope that for those involved in this incident that they are on a path to recovery and doing well.”

In December 2021, police responded to the house because the dog ‒ then a 3-month-old puppy ‒ had been stabbed after biting a man, records show.

The man and woman reported they had been arguing. The man stabbed the dog repeatedly with a butcher knife to get it to let go. Initially, the woman wanted to have the man criminally charged for stabbing the dog. But she changed her mind after the dog recovered from its injuries, according to a 2021 police report.

Elgin considered declaring pit bulls to automatically be considered “dangerous” dogs in 2010. That would have required owners to license the dogs with the city and have a 6-foot-tall fence around their property. Dog owners vociferously criticized the proposal, contending that aggressive behavior should be attributed to how a dog is trained and treated, not its breed.

“Pit bull” is not an official breed with the American Kennel Club because the dogs are not purebreds. Some breeds referred to as pit bulls include the American Staffordshire terrier and American Bully.